MRSEC nugget

The Columbia University MRSEC and Jay Dubner (leader of our partner program in which high school teachers do research) began a partnership with the New York Hall of Science, a hands-on science and technology center in Queens, to develop carts with hands-on experiments at this museum.
The National Science Foundation grant awarded through the Internships in Public Science Education (IPSE) program in September 2005, calls for the MRSEC and the New York Hall of Science to develop five materials science and nanotechnology rolling exhibits over the next three years. The project will unite high school teachers who have worked in materials science research laboratories, research faculty, graduate students and museum staff in developing rolling exhibits that will engage students, teachers and the general public. While using these hands-on, attractive and stimulating exhibits, the public will learn about current science and research. The prototype cart proposed for Year 1 will be a Sand Tank that will illustrate the basic principles of pollution and remediation with the use of materials science. (These Sand Tanks were used earlier by the Columbia Environmental Molecular Sciences Institute (EMSI) in outreach efforts.) The modules are flexible enough that they can be adapted to teaching a wide range of individuals, from young children to adults.
A kick-off meeting was held at the New York Hall of Science on January 21, 2006. At this meeting, Herrera, Dubner, a high school teacher who formerly did research in a MRSEC lab and museum staff discussed the development of the first discovery cart. A cadre of museum staff members called ?Explainers,? will be trained at the initiation of the project. Museum ?explainers? interact with and instruct more than 300,000 annual visitors to the Hall of Science.
The first cart, the Sand Tank, is projected to be available to the public in the spring 2006. The four remaining discovery carts are projected to follow in early 2007 and early 2008.

Posted on: May 12, 2006
For more information, please contact Justine Herrera.