MATERIALS EDUCATION: OPPORTUNITIES OVER A LIFETIME

A REPORT ON THE 17^TH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE ON NATIONAL MATERIALS POLICY

COLLEGE PARK, MD

MAY 20-21, 2002

Sponsored by:

Federation of Materials Societies
University Materials Council

Supported by:

Air Force Office of Scientific Research
ASM International Foundation
U.S. Department of Energy
National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Science Foundation
Sandia National Laboratories
TMS Foundation
University of Maryland

INTRODUCTION

Iver E. Anderson, Vice President

Federation of Materials Societies

Through the initiative of the current FMS President, Dr. Lyle Schwartz, the focus of the 2002 FMS Biennial Meeting was fixed on the topic of materials education, specifically to test this choice of direction for reinvigoration of FMS. As spelled out in the proposed (January 2001) FMS Business Plan; "Educational efforts of the individual societies will be enhanced by joint efforts facilitated under the umbrella of the FMS. Current focus will be on those activities aimed at increasing undergraduate enrollment in materials programs. ……FMS would play the role of host and facilitator for the members' joint efforts, and funding would come from society resources augmented by special fund-raising efforts from government and private sector sources." Further, the performance expectations for FMS were specified, as follows: "FMS will work with member societies to identify and pursue joint efforts in the educational arena at all academic levels that are targeted at increasing awareness about and enrollment in materials related fields at the collegiate level."

It was with that background that a small steering committee, including Iver E. Anderson, Slade Cargill, Kathy Faber, and Betsy Houston, began organizing this meeting. Although we started with the normal FMS Biennial organization model, the plans for this meeting quickly evolved to include both FMS and the University Materials Council (UMC) as a full partner in this enterprise, since its eventual outcome is critical to the future strength of both organizations. You will find a description of the exciting agenda of speakers (with abstracts) and events that comprised "Materials Education: Opportunities Over a Lifetime" along with this summary. We have also tried to provide a condensation of the purpose and scope of the meeting and an immediate summary of the conclusions and recommendations for action in the text that follows. When reviewing these materials, it is important to come to your own conclusions about how the action items (especially) can provide a high value for the member societies of FMS and how the entire Materials Science and Engineering field can benefit from the synergistic efforts that are proposed. Also, all readers are encouraged to supplement or refine the list of observations and recommendations that are provided, taking care to keep the best interests of the entire field in mind.

Purpose: Materials Education: Opportunities Over a Lifetime was designed for a thorough interchange of beneficial ideas and practices in materials science and engineering education among concerned citizens, professional educators, and funders/policy makers. As its title implies, the conference addressed the gamut of materials education issues at the grassroots, K-12, and college/university levels. Materials Education: Opportunities over a Lifetime was a unique opportunity for the entire materials community to meet and exchange information, ideas, and plans.

Goals: All groups involved in materials education enterprise learned about the possibilities for parallel activities and collaboration. Professional educators and researchers became aware of the broad spectrum of potential sources of support. Funding organizations and policy makers became acquainted with the needs, opportunities and activities in materials education at all levels.

Highlights: The keynote address was delivered by Joanna Cole, author of the popular children’s science book series, The Magic School Bus. A banquet address also was presented by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a prominent member of Congress who has been a leader in the public policy arena for science, math, engineering and technology education. Following the invited talks in each session, a roundtable discussion helped to involve all participants in the key discussion items that were raised. A poster session that operated on both days of the conference provided a chance for interested participants to display and describe exhibits from their own Materials Education projects. All inputs and recommendations were gathered into a summary and action plan (see below) which will be widely distributed to technical and professional societies, universities, K-12 educators and their organizations, and government policy makers.

GENERAL SUMMARY

Lyle H. Schwartz, President

Federation of Materials Societies

General Observations

Exciting presentations, well organized sessions, enormous evidence of energetic involvement.

Lots going on, so what’s the issue?

No measures of impact, little evidence of positive change on National level.*

*comment from Lance Davis (NAE), member of organizing committee

FMS Education Role

Concerns of Our Member Societies:

Public Awareness: Stimulate more people to understand/appreciate Science and Engineering, public science literacy, create a technically informed democracy, promote National support for the research enterprise in the Physical Sciences and Engineering.

Feed the Pipeline: Stimulate more science/engineering majors in colleges and universities.

Recruit from the Pipeline: Stimulate specific selection of Materials Science and Engineering options by students.

The Challenge

Each FMS member society has projects underway.

Few are national in scope.

We may be engaged in "feel good," but low payoff efforts.

Can we find a few important areas and use FMS to make a difference?

Issues

Was "Pride of Ownership" syndrome keeping small projects separated?

No! Participants at this meeting suggest that is not an issue.

Does a lack of resources hinder the efforts of individual projects?

Yes! Many (most?) of our member societies are lacking sufficient funds/volunteers to fully implement efforts.

Focus should be directed to activities with National reach that can be supported locally by Chapters and Materials Clubs at Universities

Basic Principles for Collaboration

Selection of focus for collective action:

Opportunity for National reach.

Expand existing projects, don't create new ones, at this point.

Several Member Societies should be involved.

The more inclusive the project, the better.

Important Ideas

Reach children early (start at grade 3-4) to influence entry into science.

Support curiosity of students to influence focus on Materials Science and Engineering (grade 7-12).

Teacher training is at the heart of the problem.

Addresses “feeding the pipeline” AND “recruiting from the pipeline”.

Many opportunities abound in existing sub-national programs.

Project Options for "Teach the Teachers"

Materials Camp

Expand to new sites.

Participate in identifying applicants.

Focus on High School Teachers Camp?

Use EMTECH and/or MWM?

Materials World Modules (MWM)

Expand the market to include teacher training.

Identify corporate sponsors.

Educate the educators.

Advanced Technology Center

Join with ASM, SME.

Join MAGSTEM proposal.

Expand some already existing national program, e.g. NSTA competition. Include contributions from Materials Science and Engineering in PhysTEC.

MRS Traveling Museum Exhibit

Raise funds for new sites.

Prepare visited cities for maximum participation using volunteers from local Chapters and Materials Clubs at Universities.

Next Steps-Near Term

Form standing FMS Committee on Materials Education.

Create a Clearing House for current activities (combining the efforts of others, e.g. MWM, NSTA, NEW)

Continue the collaboration with UMC and develop linkage to NSTA.

Use the MRSECs and other NSF-funded programs for National leverage.

Confirm selection of the initial project(s), working with the Lead Societies, set an agenda for collaboration, and DO IT!

Explore advocacy role for FMS in support of funding for Dept. of Education role in Math and Science Partnerships (possible major support).

Next Steps-Long Term

Develop a long-term roadmap with Member Societies describing goals of the program including vision, targeted milestones, and metrics.

Formalize cooperation through strategic alliances.

Summary

FMS can play a role of coordination and facilitation in the educational arena

We will focus our energies on "Teach the Teacher" for maximum impact.

Stay tuned!

APPENDIX:

Conclusions and Recommendations from each Session Chair:

Session I: Grassroots

Iver E. Anderson, Iowa State University

Motivations for Enhancement of Materials Education:

Recharge the pipeline of materials scientists and engineers to replenish the aging workforce in many areas of manufacturing, academia, and government laboratories. Reverse the trend of declining memberships in technical societies related to materials science and engineering.

Influence policy makers to provide additional funding for education and research in the materials science field.

Raise the overall level of materials science literacy in the population to enable the functioning of a more interactive and informed democracy.

Recommended Mechanisms to Reach the General Public:

Materials Science should be FUN! FMS should encourage the development of new museum and science center displays.

Science displays must be enjoyable and accurate.

Learn and refine exhibits from public feedback.

Local chapters of materials societies could promote and staff traveling exhibits.

FMS could facilitate the assembly of a catalogue of the diverse collection of existing Materials Science displays and demonstrations that have been developed.

A Magic School Bus book should be commissioned by FMS from Scholastic Books to permit Joanna Cole to develop a Materials Science title with broad impact for elementary readers.

A National Materials Week could be created to raise public awareness of our profession, where FMS could coordinate national outreach activities.

General Enabling Activities:

Considerable effort is needed to condense each scientific message to an attractive form that can be widely understood and all materials scientist should practice this skill.

Retain scientific accuracy, while avoiding jargon.

Illustrate the scientific method by a storytelling style, e.g. mystery.

Describe the failures and successes to illustrate the scientific process.

Media outreach should be encouraged among materials scientists to engage the public in thinking about the benefits, challenges, and triumphs of materials science.

Target media with broad reach, e.g., television, radio, Internet.

Public forums should be sought for local science demonstrations with trained volunteers to increase the learning impact.

Build from the materials developed for museums and classrooms.

Reach the people at malls, fairs, and school events.

Other Program Proposals:

A "Family Materials Science" program could be created to involve families who want their children to learn about the world of science and to share more quality time.

Develop curriculum with funding from, e.g., NSF.

Science museums and universities should host on weekends.

Train young "Peer Teachers" to provide a bridge to the schools.

A set of Materials Science activities could be developed for the ZOOM show on PBS and grouped under the rubric "ZOOM into Materials Science."

Combined funding from FMS member societies to develop.

Society members would be trained as activity leaders.

Session II: K-12 Education

Katherine T. Faber, Northwestern University

Chair, University Materials Council

Conclusions and Recommendations:

Materials societies should work in conjunction with NSTAto identify opportunities for the materials communities to bring materials science and engineering to teachers of science.

The expansion of “Teacher in Residence” or Teacher Camp Programs should be lobbied for by FMS and supported byfederal funds.

Expand Materials Camps to more venues. FMS help?

Materials societies and universities should enlist the supportof industry to recruit students to the MSE discipline. Industrial

programs should be brought to lower levels, i.e. middle schools.

Determine the limiting factor in distribution/implementationof MWM; FMS role?

FMS working with ASM should catalog the myriad of K-12 MSE educational activities to identify redundancy, best practices, and holes.

Session III: College, University, and Continuing Education

G. Slade Cargill III, Lehigh University

Conclusions:

Materials courses for non-science/engineering students can introduce science concepts and reasoning to students who might otherwise graduate with no exposure to physical sciences.

Materials science and engineering programs face challenges in growing and maintaining undergraduate enrollments commensurate with opportunities for BS, MS and Ph.D. employment.

“Common freshman year” curricula and contacts with freshman-year students, e.g. through materials chemistry, engineering projects, or introduction to engineering courses, are important for recruiting students to materials programs.

Recommendations:

More college-level exposure to materials science should be provided for both science and engineering majors and non-majors, because materials science underlies past, current and future technologies.

Materials education should reflect the interdisciplinary nature of current advances in materials research and applications.

Materials societies should collaborate with one another and with college/university materials departments in marketing materials education and career opportunities.

Materials departments should play more active roles in training teachers of science and engineering for primary and secondary schools.