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NANSLO Lab at GFC MSU opens doors to the future of science education
When you walk into Dr. Brenda Canine’s science lab at Great Falls College MSU, you see a lot the things you’d see in any science lab – microscopes, test tubes, slides and other equipment.
However, it’s also instantly clear that this isn’t a typical science laboratory. All the equipment is controlled by robots.
Those robots, in turn, are controlled by students who can be located anywhere in the world.
The lab is part of the North American Network of Science Labs Online, or NANSLO for short. The NANSLO lab at Great Falls College MSU, which opened in August 2014, is the only NANSLO lab in the United States.
Students who use the lab do so virtually, connecting with the lab via an Internet connection. However, nothing about the lab is simulated, said Canine, NANSLO lab manager. Students are controlling real lab equipment in real time.
“We have normal equipment that we’ve attached to some kind of robot,” Canine said.
For example, a robotic arm selects a slide from a rack and places it on a microscope. Students use controls on their computer to move the slides and focus the image.
“The student is controlling all of this from home,” she said. “They can see what’s going on because of the video feed.”
Each piece of equipment has a web camera to show students what’s happening.
Students can access the lab anywhere they have an Internet connection, whether that’s at home, on a lunch hour at work, or over the Wi-Fi at a local coffee house.
Dr. Dan Casmier, chemistry faculty at GFC MSU, frequently assigns projects to his students that require use of the NANSLO lab. However, Casmier admits, at first, he was skeptical about just how realistic a remote science lab could be.
He worried that students wouldn’t get a full understanding of their lab assignments without being able to manipulate real equipment. However, after working through a few labs, it seemed the opposite was true.
“They get to know the material better,” Casmier said.
In a face-to-face lab, students who are unsure about lab work can step back and avoid an active role in the experiments.
“Students can fall back on lab partners and then they don’t understand the concepts later on,” Casmier said.
In the NANSLO lab, they don’t have lab partners, but students can chat with other students online about their lab work.
“NANSLO forces them to take advantage of the time in the lab to get a better grasp of the concepts,” Casmier said.
In the three full semesters the NANSLO lab has been open, it’s hosted about 750 labs. Many of the students using the NANSLO lab are GFC MSU students. However, students from Flathead Valley Community College also access the lab, as do students from some outlying high schools.
Simms High School uses the NANSLO lab on a regular basis. They have a number of ongoing experiments happening in the lab, including a fish tank that allows students to remotely adjust pH levels, temperature and food. A web cam that’s on 24/7 allows them to observe the fish and see what happens when they make adjustments.
“I have high schools students calling me at 8 a.m. on a Saturday asking about the fish,” Canine said. “How often are high school students excited about science on a Saturday morning?”
“This is really remote science at its best,” she added.
The lab can be used by any school anywhere in the world.
“We’ve been approached by schools in Texas, California and Alaska,” Canine said.
Some schools say they don’t have enough space in their science labs for all the students enrolled in science classes. Canine hopes they’ll take advantage of the large capacity the NANSLO lab offers
“We can have up to 25 students per hour using the lab,” Canine said.
The lab has also been used by students who started at GFC MSU and then had to relocate, sometimes internationally.
“The student who was the farthest away was in New Zealand,” Canine said.
Another student was deployed overseas mid-semester and was able to finish his course work thanks to the NANSLO lab.
The idea of a remote science lab started about 10 years ago on North Vancouver Island. The lab was funded by the Gates Foundation, with the goal of expanding science lab access for students.
“North Vancouver Island is actually very rural, kind of like Montana,” Canine explained.
The implementation of the NANSLO lab in Great Falls was funded through a grant from the Consortium for Healthcare Education Online, part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grant.
“Great Falls College MSU pursued grant funding for a NANSLO lab because it was a great fit for a large, rural state like Montana,” said Dr. Susan Wolff, Dean and CEO of Great Falls College MSU. “NANSLO gives students across Montana the opportunity to learn very high-level science.”
The NANSLO lab has some equipment that wouldn’t be found in a typical college science lab. For example, the gas chromatograph that students use in the NANSLO lab costs about $2,000. A classroom science lab would need one of those for each student, which would be cost prohibitive.
“Everything we’re using is research-grade equipment,” Canine said. “This is actually better equipment than I had in grad school.”
Casmier uses that gas chromatograph and an emissions spectroscopy lab in his introduction to chemistry class.
“In the emissions lab, students get to see the light that’s given off by elements when they’re excited,” Casmier said.
It’s the same science that astronomers use to determine what elements make up a star.
The NANSLO lab allows GFC MSU and other schools to offer science classes that are 100 percent online, Canine said.
“Students never have to come here,” she said.
Before the NANSLO lab launched, online science students bought lab kits that they could use at home. Those kits, however, had shortcomings. For example, instead of a microscope, students used a magnifying glass.
“The NANSLO lab uses real instrumentation that scientists use,” Casmier said.
The CHEO grant that initially funded the NANSLO lab will be coming to an end in March.
GFC MSU is currently pursuing other grants and looking for partners to keep the NANSLO lab open.
“Right now there’s no funding source for it,” Canine said.
However, GFC MSU is committed to keeping the lab going. In three semesters, it’s had an incredible impact on allowing students access to science.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a few hundred feet from the lab or a few thousand miles away,” Casmier said.
“Distance learning is becoming increasingly important,” she said. “We want to give students across Montana, no matter where they live, the same opportunities students have in larger population centers.”
For more information on the NANSLO Lab, visit gfcmsu.edu/webs/nanslo, or contact Brenda Canine at 406-771-4435 or firstname.lastname@example.org.