2012 Summer Symposium Program - Middlebury College

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Page 12 13 Malcolm Littlefield ‘13 Major: ENVS, CHEM National Science Foundation (Costanza-Robinson) Annie Mejaes ‘13 Major: ENVS, CHEM National Science Foundation (Costanza-Robinson) Molly Costanza-Robinson Associate Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies 14 Adrienne Matunas ‘13 Major: RELI, PHIL Undergraduate Collaborative Research Fund Yonna McShane Director of Learning Resources for CTLR Middlebury Summer Research Symposium 2012 substantive section into thirds, we found that accurate, inaccurate, intrusive facts occur in differing patterns by time, as does the proportion of accurate facts for each interview. These findings have important implications for health professionals who interview children. Surfactant Modification of Montmorillonite for Environmental Contaminant Remediation Malcolm Littlefield, Annie Mejaes, and Molly Costanza-Robinson Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Middlebury College, Middlebury VT 05753 Surfactant-modified clay minerals (organoclays) are increasingly being examined as a cost-effective, sorbent for environmental contaminants (e.g., for groundwater remediation). However, few studies have examined the relationship between the microstructure and chemistry of the organoclay and its capacity to adsorb various contaminants. Our work this summer involved preparing and characterizing a Na-montmorillonite that we modified with the cationic surfactant myristyl trimethylammonium bromide. The organomontmorillonite was prepared at various surfactant surface coverages (% of cation exchange capacity, CEC). X-ray diffraction revealed the basal spacing of 100 % CEC montmorillonite to be 17.8 Å, significantly larger than that for unmodified montmorillonite (12.5 Å). An expanded basal spacing may increase the clay’s adsorption capacity for larger contaminants. No uptake of aniline, a model contaminant, was observed for unmodified montorillonite, whereas 1.2 mg/g of aniline was adsorbed by the 100% CEC modified montorillonite. We attribute these findings to the increased hydrophobicity of the modified clay surface, as well as the increased basal spacing. These preliminary findings, along with additional data, will greatly increase our ability to optimize clays for contaminant uptake. Utilization of Academic Support Services at the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research Adrienne Matunas and Yonna McShane Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research, Middlebury College, Middlebury VT 05753 The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research offers an array of academic support services to Middlebury students, including peer and professional tutoring in writing, quantitative disciplines, languages, oral presentation skills, study skills, and time management. Literature reviews about postsecondary academic support reveal the widespread belief that learning centers at 4-year institutions serve a small segment of the student body, predominantly first-year students and students experiencing academic crises. At institutions like Middlebury where student achievement is very high, it is often assumed that few students seek tutoring, or that
15 Poomirat Nawarat ‘14 Major: PHYS, CSCI Bicentennial Fund Anne Goodsell Assistant Professor of Physics Middlebury Summer Research Symposium 2012 only first-year students or students with serious academic needs utilize academic support services. Data collected from AccuTrack, the CTLR’s tutoring database, challenge these assumptions. Over 44% of the Middlebury student body met with a CTLR tutor over the course of the 2011–2012 academic year, and more than half of visits to professional tutors, peer content tutors, and peer writing tutors were made by sophomore, junior, and senior students. In addition, many of the students who met with tutors had high grade point averages, up to and including 4.0. Continued research will focus on academic outcomes for students who took advantage of CTLR services in order to understand more precisely the impact of tutoring and academic support on student achievement at Middlebury. Preparing a Proper Environment for Cooling Atoms Poomirat Nawarat and Anne Goodsell Department of Physics, Middlebury College, Middlebury VT 05753 The ultimate goal of our project is to perform laser cooling on a dilute gas of neutral atoms, which is Rubidium in our case. In order to achieve this goal one needs to construct a proper integrated system from smaller systems that function in many different tasks needed in the cooling process. We need lasers for cooling the dilute gas. We need a proper optical system to manipulate the laser beams. We need a vacuum chamber to keep the gas dilute in low temperature. We need a pump system to create and maintain the proper low-pressure environment within the chamber. We need a magnetic-field system to confine the cold atoms in a finite space. For our experiment all these component systems need to work well together in one complex system of cooling, like many pieces of a jig-saw puzzle are required for a complete picture. In the beginning of summer we already had most of the equipment, however we only had one laser and some part of optical system that had been set up and ready to use. My tasks are setting up two extra lasers, vacuum chamber and ion pump, and also helping in optical alignment. Now we already have a proper arrangement of the vacuum chamber and ion pump system that can maintain the pressure at 1.0x10 -10 Torr. We can also manipulate the three pairs of laser beams to cross each other in the middle of the chamber in the simple Cartesian configuration. Page 13
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Page 7 and 8: 3 Samouel Beguin ‘13 Major: ENVS,
Page 9 and 10: 6 Nicholas Dragone ‘14 Major: BIO
Page 11 and 12: 8 Aden Forrow ‘13 Major: PHYS, MA
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Page 17 and 18: 17 Lucia Perez ‘14 Major: Astroph
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Page 21 and 22: 22 Garron Sanchez ‘13 Major: MBB
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Page 25 and 26: 27 Karl Wetterhorn ‘13 Major: BIO
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2012 Summer Symposium Program - Middlebury College

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