UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN COLORADO

Loretta Lucek Jones, D.A., Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Greeley, Colorado 80639
Office: (970) 351-1443; Fax: (970) 351-1269
E-mail: Loretta.Jones@unco.edu

      

Molecular Visualization Workshop

 

Gordon Research Conference on Science Education and Visualization: International

Professor Jones earned a bachelor's degree in honors chemistry at Loyola University, Chicago, and a masters degree in chemistry at the University of Chicago. For nine years she worked at Argonne National Laboratory and in industry. She then went on to the University of Illinois at Chicago to earn her Ph.D. in physical chemistry. At the same time she earned a D.A. in chemistry, a preparation for teaching and educational research and development at the college level. Dr. Jones loves nature and hiking, but actually spends more time reading mysteries and science fiction.

Activities and Research

Prof. Jones' research area is Chemical Education. Her interests involve the optimization of learning environments for chemistry; they focus primarily on active involvement of students in their learning, the applications of advanced technologies to the teaching of chemistry and visual representations of complex phenomena. She was co-principal investigator of the Rocky Mountain Teacher Education Collaborative, a coalition of six Colorado schools involved in improving the education of mathematics and science teachers. She was also the principal investigator of ChemDiscovery: Chemistry for the Information Age (formerly ChemQuest), an NSF-funded project for the development of a CD-ROM based high school chemistry curriculum. She has written two general chemistry textbooks with Peter Atkins: Chemistry: Molecules, Matter and Change and Chemical Principles, and developed the interactive multimedia CD-ROM Exploring Chemistry with Stanley Smith and Steve Gammon. She also worked with Roy Tasker and others to create the Bridging to the Lab web-delivered laboratory simulations.

Publications Available on the Internet

Agapova, O., Jones, L., Ushakov, A., Ratcliffe, A., and Varanka Martin, M.  (2002). Encouraging independent chemistry learning through multimedia design experiences, Chemistry Education International, 3, No. 1.

Jones, L. L. (1999). Learning chemistry through design and construction, UniServe Science News, 14, November, 3-7.

Jones, L. L. (1996). The role of molecular structure and modeling in general chemistry, New Initiatives in Chemical Education, Summer, 1996.

SCI 265

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry