Middle School Students Take a Look at Materials
No one can be sure what spark will ignite a young person’s interest in a career in science, but there is no question that if the United States does not attract more students into engineering and the sciences, our technological lead will soon disappear. In particular, the U.S. needs to make a career in the sciences imaginable to female students and minorities.
"If it breaks down on the road, there is no repair manual." Matt Shirk, graduate student in mechanical engineering, shows off the "Future Truck."
Francelys Medina, a Ph.D. student in the Materials Science and Engineering Department and a graduate researcher at the Materials Research Institute, spends part of her busy schedule demonstrating materials science to students at Susquehanna Township Middle School, near Harrisburg. Last week more than 200 of those middle school students came to University Park to visit her and other students in science and engineering in a program organized by Graduate Research and Education in Advanced Transportation Technologies (GREATT) and sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Eighth graders from Susquehanna Township peered at the images from a Scanning Electron Microscope in the Material Research Institute’s SEM Lab. Fuzzy blobs sprang into clear focus as students manipulated the knobs on the $400,000 instrument and gaped at the hundreds of tiny facets of a housefly’ eye. In the X-Ray Diffraction Lab, students learned how light is bent through the structure of a molecule, leaving conspicuous patterns that can be analyzed, like the salt and sugar powders that lab tech Nicole Wonderling ground in her mortar and pestle. "Don’t open any doors," she told the attentive eight graders. "There are lots of x-rays flying around inside those machines."
Middle school students study Shape Memory Alloys.
In a classroom in the Research Annex, grad student Amber Schilling recounted the "Story of Nitinol," a remarkable nickel-titanium alloy discovered in 1958 by William Buehler that can remember its shape. Nitinol is being used to prevent blood clots, to hold heart arteries open, and as a replacement for stainless steel in dental braces, a subject many of the teenagers appeared to be well acquainted with.
Francelys Medina, Ph.D. student in Materials Science and Engineering, demonstrates the scanning electron microscope.
To determine which one of several metal wires in a bowl on their lab tables was made of Nitinol, students were asked to create an experiment using materials at hand that included a bowl of icy water and a beaker of water warming on a burner. They discovered that a wire made of Nitinol that was twisted into a new shape when cold would return to its original form when dropped into the warm water.
Students asked dozens of tough questions of engineering grad student Ryan Martini, who was demonstrating a 1.5 horse power hydrogen fuel cell that powered a pair of automobile headlights. Fuel cells are "neat," Ryan assured them, but still too bulky and expensive to run your family car. Out in the parking lot, however, they got a chance to see a prototype hybrid vehicle that could be on the road in a year or two. So said mechanical engineering grad student Matt Shirk, demonstrating the nifty hybrid diesel/electric engines powering a Chevy Equinox SUV.
Nichole Wonderling holds a model of a molecule in the X-Ray Diffraction Lab.
In the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, research technician Robin Tallon got the students excited by showing simulations of car crashes from test performed at the institute. "Let’s see it again," they requested as the heads of crash test dummies flopped around at odd angles, eliciting several empathetic moans. A remarkable video of a test car hitting a guide rail at high speed showed how engineered materials could absorb the impact of the crash and redirect the vehicle safely onto the road.
Susquehanna Middle School science teacher Susan Smith said that the demonstrations were especially useful for those students who already had an interest in science before the field trip. But even most of the others enjoyed more than just the Creamery ice cream, and asked questions of and attempted to answer questions from the presenters. "Many of the students were amazed by the scientific equipment being used and how much it cost!" she said. "It’s a very positive experience."
Ryan Martini, engineering graduate student, explains a fuel cell to 8th graders.
Dr. Daniel Haworth, professor of mechanical engineering and the principal investigator in charge of the NSF-funded project, says that the graduate fellows who visit the schools and handle the demonstrations come from a wide range of disciplines, including biology, chemistry, and materials science, as well as engineering. All these disciplines come together around a theme of advanced transportation, which he thinks young students will find of interest. "Not only does the National Science Foundation hope to attract students into the science and engineering, but they also want Ph.D. students in the sciences to be able to communicate with people on an understandable level. Researchers focus so narrowly on their own field that they lose the ability to talk to anyone outside their field. The NSF wants to overcome the public’s fear of science by helping scientists learn to talk about their work," he says.
Maybe the amazing shape memory properties of Nitinol will reshape a student’s future. Or a minority student may be influenced by seeing a Hispanic woman like Francelys Medina earning her Ph.D. in materials science. For these 200 middle school students, a hands-on experience at Penn State could be the spark that lights their imagination.
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