ND LIGHTS– Notre Dame Laboratory Instrumentation Giving Hope To Students – recently completed its first year of collecting and sending donated laboratory equipment to limited-resource schools across the country. Most of the schools participate in Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program.
The equipment comes complete with instructions and materials for conducting high school classroom experiments. ACE fellows who were on campus during Summer 2011 received individualized training to prepare them to use the equipment. The program is a collaboration between the College of Science, the Office of Sustainability, and Procurement Services.
To date, faculty members have donated approximately $275,000 worth of equipment. VWR, a global distributor of scientific supplies and Notre Dame’s preferred vendor for laboratory supplies, has donated the consumable materials needed to utilize the equipment. VWR’s sales representative, Renee Wedel, and on-site coordinator, Dan Tuisaula, have offices in Jordan Hall of Science and have been extremely helpful in making the fledgling program run smoothly.
“The support from VWR is incredible,” said Michelle Joyce of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who administers the program. “It makes the equipment immediately useful for teachers.” She expects to expand the program to local high schools this year.