Introduction to materials science and nanotechnology: A shared teaching/learning experience

CHED 1620

Luis A. Avila Diaz, laa4@columbia.edu and Leonard W Fine, fine@chem.columbia.edu. Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, 3000 Broadway, Havemeyer Hall, New York, NY 10027
This three-week program provided knowledge flow and integration of the fundamentals of materials science and nanotechnology to 10th and 11th graders. Graduate students from the Chemistry and Applied Physics and Engineering departments affiliated to NSEC and MRSEC centers greeted the students and shared their experience in an informal setting. The experimental sessions were divided into training and educating sessions. The training sessions provided the necessary skills to prepare nanomaterials and to test their properties. The educating experiments were presented to the participants as journal articles and web references to promote inquiry. The seminars provided different perspectives ranging from a graduate student/corporate leader to academic talks given by college professors. GE Global Research scientists provided a two-day hands-on workshop on materials' properties and there was a field trip to the Sterling Hill mine. Close-ended evaluation forms and one-month-later reflections revealed quantitatively and qualitatively that the participants had a positive learning experience.