Promoting Nanotechnology among Middle School Students: Development and Implementation of Lesson Plans (original) (raw)
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Interest in science and engineering starts early. Opportunities need to be available for students to nourish their budding curiosity. In order to provide educational opportunities on the cutting edge of advanced technology, the National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C., established a nanotechnology program for K–12 teachers. Supported by the National Science Council and the Ministry of Education, the K–12 Nanotechnology Program was led by engineering faculty at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. In about two years, 169 schools participated in five regional programs. The teachers began the program knowing little about nanotechnology. Survey results showed that participating teachers’ attitudes and interests toward learning about science and technology increased through the involvement in the project. Issues about sustaining the effort and reaching out to students are also discussed.
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The Nanotechnology Experiences for Student and Teachers (NEST) summer learning opportunity at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) connects faculty, staff, and students from the Schools of Engineering and Technology, Science, and Education with high school teachers of STEM subjects in a two week teacher professional development experience. In the summer of 2016, eleven teachers participated in a series of NEST program activities that were designed to model instructional strategies while engaging the teachers in hands-on nanotechnology research experiences. Teachers were also provided tours and exposed to research being conducted and equipment being used in labs incorporating nanotechnology across campus. Additionally, the participants worked with other teachers involved in a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) project, to develop nanotechnology lessons to incorporate in their classroom during the following school year. Primary outcomes from this professional...
Middle-and High-School Students’ Interest in Nanoscale Science and Engineering Topics and Phenomena
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Research has shown that an increase in students' interest in science and engineering can have a positive effect on their achievement ). Whereas many NSF-funded programs in materials science and nanotechnology have included efforts to develop curriculum materials for use in secondary or tertiary classrooms, relatively little work has been done to determine the topics that increase students' interest in science, engineering, and technology. As part of the work done by the National Center for Learning and Teaching in Nanoscale Science and Engineering (NCLT, 2008), we examined middle-school and high-school students' interest in topics and phenomena from the field of nanoscale science and engineering (NSE). Analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data suggested that students were most interested in topics and phenomena that related to their everyday lives, were novel, and involved manipulatives. Conversely, students were least interested in topics and phenomena they viewed as irrelevant to their lives, they believed they had learned previously, and in which they were not actively involved. These results were used to inform the development of curriculum materials for middle school and high school students aimed at enhancing the learning of NSE topics.
Secondary Students' Beliefs About Their Interests In Nanoscale Science And Engineering
2007 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, 2020
Research has shown that increasing students' interests in science has a positive effect on their science achievement; 1,2 however, there is little research as to what topics increase students' interests. 1 Nanoscale science and engineering is one topic currently being investigated as a way to increase students' interests due to its integrated nature and increasing popularity in society. This paper will examine the qualitative data gained from 58 in-depth student interviews of a diverse population. The phenomenographical analysis of interviews identified six characteristics of topics that students report as influencing their interests: relationship of activities or questions to students' personal interests, the relationship of activities or questions to everyday life, prior knowledge, prior experience, the use hands-on or experimentation, and the use of chemicals. Of the six characteristics identified, students' personal interests, the relationship between topics and students' everyday lives, and hands-on activities and experimentation were found to increase interests. The remaining three components-use of chemicals, prior knowledge, and prior experience-showed both positive and negative impacts on students' interests. These results contribute to the efforts of educators working on K-12 curriculum development, creating experiences for students that increase student learning and understanding of nanoscale science and engineering, as well as science and engineering in general.
By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it was clear that nanotechnology was emerging as one of the most promising and rapidly expanding fields of research and development worldwide. It would not be long before scientists, science educators, engineers, and policy makers began advocating for nanoscience, engineering, and technology (NSET) related concepts to be introduced in K-12 classrooms. Indeed, there has been a surge in the development of pre-college NSET-related education programs over the last decade, as well as millions in funding to support the creation of these programs. In an effort to characterize the state of research to date on pre-college students' and teachers' learning of NSET content knowledge and related practices, we have conducted a systematic review of the peer-reviewed, published research studies to answer the following questions: What NSET content knowledge and practices in a pre-college context have been examined in empirical learning studies? What do these studies tell us about the NSET content knowledge and practices that pre-college students and teachers are learning? Implications and recommendations for future research are also discussed.
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After a primer on nanotechnology and a review of current educational practices in secondary schools, the approach of just-in-time education is applied to integrate technosciences and humanities so that both future technoscientists and non-technoscientists develop a common understanding, possibly even a common language, to deal with social, ethical, legal, and political issues that arise from the development of nanotechnology and its convergence with other technoscientific developments.
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The development and implementation of a nanotechnology learning module into a freshman engineering course in Virginia Tech’s large engineering program is discussed. This module, a part of a spiral theory based nanotechnology option that will be implemented in the curriculum of the Engineering Science Mechanics (ESM) department at Virginia Tech, was piloted with ~180 freshmen in Spring ’08. The pilot included a prior knowledge survey, a 40-minute in-class presentation on nanotechnology, a hands-on module involving analysis of nanoscale images, plotting of force functions at atomic scale using LABVIEW, and a post-module survey. Students’ misconceptions, observed through the prior knowledge survey, were addressed in the in-class presentation and hands-on activities. In order to make the in-class presentation interactive, students’ responses to a series of questions were collected in real time using Tablet PC and DyKnow technologies. Lessons learned in the Spring ’08 pilot were incorpor...
Precollege nanotechnology education: a different kind of thinking
Nanotechnology Reviews, 2015
The introduction of nanotechnology education into K-12 education has happened so quickly that there has been little time to evaluate the approaches and knowledge goals that are most effective to teach precollege students. This review of nanotechnology education examines the instructional approaches and types of knowledge that frame nanotechnology precollege education. Methods used to teach different forms of knowledge are examined in light of the goal of creating effective and meaningful instruction. The developmental components needed to understand concepts such as surface area to volume relationships as well as the counterintuitive behavior of nanoscale materials are described. Instructional methods used in precollege nanotechnology education and the levels at which different nanoscale topics are introduced is presented and critiqued. Suggestions are made for the development of new nanotechnology educational programs that are developmental, sequenced, and meaningful.