| With increasing employment opportunities for B.S. graduates in regulatory agencies and firms concerned with environmental compliance issues, it is imperative that students be trained in common laboratory procedures for characterizing water and wastewater--which are then used in the design and control of water treatment systems. The Department of Civil Engineering at Texas Tech University has recently added an undergraduate laboratory course to its curriculum to familiarize students with environmental analyses for water and wastewater. The teaching laboratory provides students with direct exposure to technologies they might reasonably encounter in their professional lives. Students take the course concurrently with the introductory environmental engineering course. The course utilizes the facilities of the Environmental Science Laboratory (ESL) housed within the Civil Engineering Department. The ESL is both a teaching and research lab. Because both uses often compete for the same resource in the lab, student work in the lab needs to be accomplished efficiently.; In a project funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department, and Apple Computer, the project staff has created hypermedia-based courseware for the students to use in the laboratory. The courseware utilizes a microcomputer to control a videodisc player (commonly termed "interactive video") to guide students through the proper performance of procedures. The videodisc shows the student video sequences of people performing the procedure and the microcomputer provides them with the step-by-step instructions. The laboratory exercises on which this courseware is based, builds from the use of the simplest to more complex analytical procedures, all within the context of good laboratory practices.; This instructional system, called "LabGUIDE" has been used for initial presentations of the new lab course. Evaluation of the videodisc and computer tutorials have been made over three semesters by students and faculty. The students have been able to successfully complete assigned laboratory exercises exclusively through the use of LabGUIDE. In addition, both student and instructor responses to the interactive video instructional system has been very positive. Evaluations have been used to correct deficient materials in the computer segments and videodiscs. |
