ON CAMPUS campusreview. com. au for much less than $ 15,000 a year, the university will have to meet the imputed repayments on the capital cost of UG lab facilities and meet recurrent expenses.
There is another problem, too. Much of practical teaching is not necessarily terribly effective. According to professor Paddy O’ Toole of Monash University, joint author of Tertiary Science Education in the 21st Century, 2009 – a report prepared for the Council of Australian Deans of Science – at least half of students enrolled in science subjects are doing non-science degrees. The study questions the benefits of teaching complex lab techniques when half the students involved will probably never have an opportunity to use them. More pithily, one of the students interviewed said:“ I don’ t see how being able to dribble something into something else and turn it into something else makes any difference to your ability to understand theory …”
Over the past 20 years, a large number of influential scientists have called for a revolution in the practice of science, with the aim to create professionals who can work more effectively in interdisciplinary teams. This has developed from a growing realisation that most scientific innovations since the start of the 20th century have involved interdisciplinary teams. The discovery of DNA is perhaps the best-known example, relying, as it did, on the combined skills of a couple of biologists, a physicist and a chemist.
The need for a more effective interdisciplinary response is a frequent issue in applied research, particularly where teams need to work fast to develop responses to issues as diverse as beating Ebola or delivering a better battery for electric cars. Climate science has also developed into a focus of an interdisciplinary effort.
The US National Science Foundation( NSF) has been active in promoting interdisciplinary research and education. It considers this collaborative approach a necessary part of the response to a series of research themes that have the greatest potential to promote human wellness and sustainability. Otherwise known as Grand Challenges, these themes include developing carbon sequestration, nuclear fusion for power, providing access to clean water and developing better medicines.
Progress on interdisciplinary teaching is also being made. The most direct innovation has practical laboratories that support all disciplines, or combine many disciplines into one laboratory space. Often, this interdisciplinary teaching lab is called a superlab, following the nomenclature London Metropolitan University adopted for its 280-place interdisciplinary lab. This was developed in 2006 at a cost of £ 30 million.
Though the nomenclature might be new, the interdisciplinary undergraduate teaching laboratory has a long history in Australia. Charles Darwin University established a superlab in 1997, ARINA designed and delivered one for the University of Sydney( now Charles Sturt University) in 2003 and Bond University has taught science in a similar laboratory since the inception of its medical degree in 2004.
This modern superlab is predicated on a number of key factors:
• Improved learning outcomes
• A substantial increase in room use across many disciplines to support the business case for the capital expenditure
• Availability of IT and AV infrastructure for self-paced learning with a large cohort. If STEM academics from different disciplines can be encouraged to work together to maximise the opportunities that these facilities offer, the benefits are compelling:
• A huge reduction in the area devoted to undergraduate laboratories, perhaps by as much as 75 per cent over existing discipline-based labs.
• More efficient use of laboratory technical staff with the opportunity to develop a career structured around the acquisition of a wider variety of skills
• A reduction in the cost of consumables and the total number of academic hours required to support practical teaching efforts.
In Australia, the University of Technology, Sydney, has just completed a 200-place superlab that will be operational in the 2015 academic year. The idea of interdisciplinary labs first formulated by former dean professor Tony Moon and ARINA as long ago as 1998, has finally come to fruition under the leadership of the current dean of science, professor Bruce Milthorpe.
The UTS edition shares some characteristics with the London Metropolitan version; however, despite incorporating ideas from the new Central Science Laboratory at the University of Liverpool and other new labs, it is subtly different to all of these facilities. The performance of the UTS superlab will be closely followed by many universities in Australia, two of which began working with ARINA Hayball on their own superlab projects over the last year.
One such project includes a plan to reduce the space required for practical science laboratories by 10,000 square metres of UFA. This represents a saving of nearly 70 per cent on existing occupation, which will free up a substantial amount of existing high-serviced space to be converted to support growing research activities. Located in an existing long-span building, this university’ s new superlab will accommodate up to 125 students in one room without any structural alterations. As a result, all of the advantages of the UTS project or the London Metropolitan edition will be achieved, at a lower price point( about half the cost per square metre), by virtue of recycling an existing asset.
Replicating these results will be more difficult for other Australian universities, as many do not have suitable buildings. The majority of laboratory infrastructure predates 1970 and is characterised by short-span structural grids and low floor-to-floor heights. ARINA Hayball has explored a number of solutions to resolve the issues associated with the creation of superlabs in older-style buildings, including techniques to remove columns and the creation of long-span spaces at the top level of medium-rise buildings. Because most of these labs enable self-paced learning, the‘ top of the hour’ rush is less problematic than for lecture theatres or other timetabled spaces, so there is less of a pressing need to be at or near ground level to facilitate access, although this is certainly desirable.
The move to provide interdisciplinary labs for undergraduate teaching is a matter of urgent necessity in Australia to ensure that universities are able to manage costs, and make it possible to maintain or increase STEM student numbers. Everyone from Ian Chubb down agrees that more of these students are required, but without reform of teaching laboratory space use, the disciplines will not be able to deliver.
Even if the government does not get its way on cutting funding, the improvements in learning outcomes and reduction in cost the superlab offers mean that every university should be considering how, not if or when, it introduces its own superlab. For most universities, still in the throes of ramping up their STEM research, the capacity to adapt teaching labs to support research will be a welcome bonus. ■
Geoff Hanmer is the managing director of ARINA Hayball.
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