© 1997, Dissolved In Water Incorporated. CEO's: Mike Lewis, Emma Teuten, and Paul Benny. All rights reserved.

Group Identity

Dissolved In Water

e-mail addresses:

Lewis, Mike

Teuten, Emma

Benny, Paul

Group Meetings

Group Dynamics

Mike Lewis

I enjoyed this project much more than the previous project. Paul and Emma were a great help in understanding the paper. It is always easier to understand a paper when you can discuss it with others. The three of us contributed equally to the selection of the paper. We searched Chemical Abstracts for recent papers on 2D-NMR in first rate journals, and read the abstracts of a few selections before making our decision. We did not encounter any great troubles in our search for a topic, as there are quite a few good papers on 2D-NMR. I certainly think the most useful learning tool was the creation of the problem set. It made us think about the research on a different level. You really have to understand a piece of research before you can ask competent questions on the subject.

To finish off, I really enjoyed participating in the two projects with Emma and Paul. We got along well, and complimented each other well. For this project it was nice to have other people to talk to when trying to comprehend the research, and I surely came to a quicker understanding of the material because of the interactions with Paul and Emma. I would have no reservations about participating in a group setting such as this again.

Emma Teuten

Working as a group allowed the work load to be dispersed, and thus our search for a paper was quick and efficient. We obtained a list of current papers on the subject of 2D NMR, from CAS on-line, and looked at several of the ones with most interesting titles. However, the search finished when we found the fascinating Science research paper entitled "Mercury-199 NMR of the Metal Receptor Site in MerR and Its Protein-DNA Complex". This paper seemed more unique than many of the other papers involving advanced NMR techniques.

Discussing the paper with Mike and Paul helped to clarify the information presented. The more we talked about it, the clearer it became in my mind. Writing a problem set relating to the paper helped me to understand the finer points more clearly- in order to write viable questions about a particular subject it must be very well understood. In understanding the whole paper I learned more than solely that relevant to this project.

I have enjoyed working on the group projects in this class, and have found them very beneficial, both educationally and socially. If I could ensure such a relaxed but hard working group in the future, then I would certainly engage in such group activities again.

Paul Benny

The project search consisted of a online search of chem abstracts data base. A number of papers were photocopied and generally browsed for pertinent NMR concepts. The paper seemed to a representitive paper of metallo-protein NMR, which sounded interesting everyone in the group. The metal coordination sphere is what interested myself, being more of an inorganic chemist.

The principle of questioning the evidence presented in any type of paper aids the comprehension of the material. In order to question the paper's chemistry, the foundational concepts concerning the method must be understood. You would not try to construct a building without a good foundation. Additional papers and books provide additional explainations of the theory and the methodology involved in the experiment. Most of the time working on the project was spent surfing through the material and interpreting the data recovered. The development of the problem set did help critically analyze the evidence presented by the author. To design questions, we had to first understand the foundation the author was working from and interpret the authors data much the same as they understood their experiment. Group activities are fun if you have time to work on them. If you don't have t ime due to other time constraints, projects seem to be less effective as a learning tool.