I.T.I.S. "Stanislao Cannizzaro

Prof.ssa  Anna Gagliardi  Scicutelli

cannizzaro@cannizzaro.uni.net

scicutelli@tiscalinet.it

- Chemical course

Via Consolare Latina, 263

Colleferro (ROMA), Italy, 00034

+ 39-06 97200405

Maurizio Rosati, maurizio_rosati@agilent.com

+39.02.9260.8343 (Telnet 354.8343)

3. PROPOSAL

I.                       Description:

Our school in the local context

The history of ITIS “S. Cannizzaro” of Colleferro is strictly connected to the development of the industrial chemistry course as it can be deduced by the name of the institute. See URL below:

http://www.cannizzaro.uni.net

Students sum to around 600, therefore we can consider the total population exposed to the Agilent Technology Brand , where the Chemical Specialization Section represents 12% of total. All the students will make use of instruments in order to achieve the grades of Chemical Station operators. The highest ratio of female students is attending this section.

The industrial vocation of our town and its surroundings, which have grown together with the industrial plants, has been essentially chemical.

The relationship between school and industry has sometimes produced positive interactions for our school, which still nowadays represents a valuable part of the school patrimony of the Province of Rome, even if it needs update and technologically advanced equipment.

The potential employers of graduates from this Institute are

major customers for Agilent Technologies products, some company names :

-Janssen,-Bristol Myers & Squibb, -Pfizer, -Lepetit, -Abbott,

-Serono, -Nalco, -Sagit,....and many others.

All the students from our Institute easily find a job within a short time in the above companies. As of now the market demand for skilled operators is above the offer, considering even National Industries such as :

-         Sigma Tau, -Menarini, -ACS Dobfar , -Farmaceutici Gellini,

-         IDI Farmaceutici,- Segix, -Recordati...and others.

We feel confident to attract more students being able to offer the latest technologies and enabling them to be more prepared in responding to the prospected strong market demand.

In addition, this is the only school operating in the chemical field, able to satisfy the demand coming from the production world of technical engineers in chemistry. In this perspective the chemical course represents a sector attracting the young people, mainly girls.

This analytical chemistry project, which will be three years long, involves:

1)-Curricular activities, addressed only to the students,   consisting of both theoretical lessons and practical laboratory experiences about water and food analyses (e.g. fats, wines, milk, waters, and typical products of this area, time dedicated to labs activities in the specialization timeframe is more than 60% for the population of Chemical Specialization Section.

2)-Extra-school seminar activities, addressed to both students and external users, about environmental chemistry themes (e.g. water and land pollution, agricultural and food resources, health safety and environment protection). The external users will be students from other schools and citizens interested in these themes, so that the school will become a place where adults' education is also carried out. The extra-school activities are designed to address potential audience that double the public standard curriculum activities. In both cases our Educational Project is aimed to execute the analytical determination of :

·        biphenil in citrus

·        methanol in wine and spirits

·        benzene in gasoline

·        chlorinated solvents in water

·        fatty acids of triacylglycerines from vegetables and animal sources

·        natural polysaccharides in food product

 Obviously, in order to make all this real, the use of modern and up-to-date equipment (GC, HPLC) has to be considered a must, since the laboratory represents the proper place where it is possible to join “know” and “know how”.

At present the equipment of out school consists of a PERKIN-ELMER 8310 and an HPLC PERKIN-ELMER SERIES 100 PUMP, which are rather obsolete and require frequent and expensive servicing.

II.                 Objectives

Objectives:

1)  to enlarge the knowledge of the specific scientific subjects of the chemical course

2)  to foster the use of update technologies

3)  to develop the learners’ awareness about the cultural value of chemistry, considered as a scientific subject related both to social and every day life and not as an abstract science detached from reality

4)  to improve a greater attention and sensitivity towards the environmental problems, by providing information about them.

III.          Measures

Progression monitoring

It will be related to two different aspects:

1)  the project’s success

2)  the students’ achievements

As to the first point, the parameters of the project’s evaluation will be the following:

-         number of analyses performed

-         number of different samples analyzed

-         reliability and reproducibility of the analyses

-         size of the audience at the extra-school seminars

As to the second point, the tests will aim at measuring the acquisition levels of both knowledge and operative skills.

The results of the two different types of evaluation will be periodically reported on the school Web site in a space specifically devoted to this project.

We expect to have great improvements in the cultural background of the learners and a better vocational training which will make them ready to enter the labor market. Finally we expect this experience will improve and update the professional culture of the staff as we can consider it as a sort of in-service training.

IV.                 Self Assessment

From the teaching-learning process point of view, this project has got several innovative features, mainly because it is based on a strict junction between school and life, as the students will make their researches about concrete data and problems derived from their social context. Another innovative aspect is the simultaneous reporting of the results towards the “external world” so that the school will become an active education agent whose works can be seen and used by other entities. The new technologies, and the Internet  in particular, offer the possibility to make this possible.