Kris Kim
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough
Disciplinary Area: STEMConsiderations for Undegraduate Research: Course and Curriculum Design
Professor Kris Kim started with a question: how to meaningfully engage students in research spaces that complement the work being undertaken in the more conventional lab? Professor Kim had previously taken students to Highland Creek to collect water samples that they would ultimately test for chemical analytes in connection to human and environmental health and saw the power of this learning space. While students might initially be a bit reticent, once they were standing in the Creek, they really grasped the real-world applications of their lab work.
Professor Kim, however, wanted to create an experience that would go beyond this one-time visit and turned to the Campus Farm at UTSC. Located on the north side of the UTSC campus, it provides 5-acres devoted specifically to teaching and community engagement, and another 5-acres to provide UTSC research faculty and their students an opportunity to carry out research studies. It is also a space that is supported by Béatrice Lego, Campus Farm Coordinator, who happens to have her PhD in Chemistry. Professor Kim engaged in many conversations with Dr. Lego about how the farm could be used to bridge concepts in his course CHMB16: Techniques in Analytical Chemistry, a second-year course with 80 students. And with the support of a research assistant, they set about redesigning the course with the lens of experiential learning.
The Campus Farm had previously been a bit of a landfill, and nature had repossessed the land to create a thriving ecosystem. In running tests on the soil, however, different contaminants had been discovered including small amounts of lead. Wanting students to go beyond collecting samples, Professor Kim wanted to share an open-ended question and asked students to consider if phytoremediation would be an effective approach to remove the lead. Phytoremediation is a process whereby a growing plant absorbs soil contaminants and then the plant is dug up and disposed of, thus removing contaminants from the soil. Questions posed to students included how much of the contaminant would be absorbed? And would red clover, specifically, be effective in this process?
Professor Kim structured the course so students alternated weeks in the research lab and the Campus Farm. In the lab they learned instrumentation and lab techniques, and on the Farm they grew red clover to eventually be tested. Students undoubtedly benefited from this exposure to the Farm, and learning to apply their research skills in real-world settings. It also allowed students to learn about the Indigenous Medicine Garden, and Indigenous perspectives of the land.
Professor Kim has continued to collaborate with Dr. Lego and the Campus Farm. They recently received an Adams Sustainability Faculty Grant to explore vermicomposting and the possibility of using on-campus food waste to generate vermicompost for campus gardens.
You can learn more about Professor Kim’s work on the Campus Farm in his recently published co-written article with The Journal of Chemistry Education.