Materials science emphasizes community outreach as well as research

John Hunt, facility manager of the Electron and Optical Microscopy Lab in Bard Hall, demonstrates equipment for Newfield eighth-grader Tanisha Slaughter. Susan Wirsig/CCMR Outreach

By David Brand

Materials science at Cornell is about nanocomposites, thin films on glass and energetic beams deposition. But it is also about students and teachers and families learning the basics of science and technology together.

For the past 18 months, the educational outreach program at the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) has been moving into high gear. Six community outreach programs and one for undergraduates are involving faculty and local schools in an effort to broaden young students' exposure to science and technology and, hopefully, to have an impact in increasing the future supply of scientists and engineers.

"Really, this is for all of us," said Susan Wirsig, CCMR educational outreach coordinator. "It's a win-win situation because we can all learn from each other. Faculty learn how to express their understanding of scientific concepts at the community level, and kids find they are able to absorb that information."

Wirsig credits the program's successes to the encouragement of former CCMR director John Silcox (now vice provost for physical sciences and engineering) and to current director Neil W. Ashcroft, the Horace White Professor of Physics, Helene Schember, the center's associate director, as well as to the backing of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Others credit Wirsig's own energies and enthusiasm.

The latest of the center's seven outreach programs recently was awarded $40,000 by the NSF for a two-year pilot program. Initially it will bring four middle- and high-school science teachers to Cornell for six weeks of intensive laboratory training and curriculum research.

Other outreach programs offered by CCMR include:

• Microworld: Now in its fourth year, the program introduces teachers of grades four through eight to optical microscopes.

• Families Learning Science Together: The program, in its first year, offers Saturday morning sessions for young children and their parents to learn together about science -- from magnets to tie-dying. On Feb. 20, for example, 12 families joined Christopher Ober, professor of materials science and engineering, for a lesson about polymers.

• Project Science at Ithaca High School: Once a month Cornell graduate students visit the school's Science Club to lead a demonstration of a scientific principle.

• Research Experience for Undergraduates: This 10-week summer program offers research at Cornell for students across the country working with Cornell faculty and graduate students.

• Chemistry Workshop for Teachers: The program offers a daylong workshop in materials chemistry for chemistry teachers from community colleges and high schools.

• Community Science Projects: The program offers on-campus science activities and demonstrations for schools and youth groups and works with the Ithaca Journal to provide the paper's "Ask a Scientist" column.

The CCMR's latest outreach program has involved 90 students, all in eighth grade, and five teachers from the Newfield Central School District in an introduction to fiber optics. With funds from its annual $4 million NSF block grant for research and outreach, the center organized a two-week introduction to the unique properties of glass as a material and a demonstration of the applications of optical fibers.

On Feb. 2, 4 and 9, the students and their teachers visited Cornell for a series of workshops. Groups of 30 learned about the optical properties of stained glass, visited the Bard Hall Electron and Optical Microscopy Lab with facility manager John Hunt, made candy out of spun glasslike fibers, and actually used fiber optics under the tutelage of graduate student David Picciotto. Graduate students Emily Hackett, Samantha Glazier, Jennifer Gaudioso and Tom Barbieri spent two days working with the students.

"This has been a very positive experience," said Wirsig. "What has been unique about this has been working with the same group of students over a number of days. All of the lab sessions reached different students in different ways."

Pressed for just one main reason why CCMR is doing educational outreach, Wirsig said, "I guess I would have to say it's to attract really bright kids to science." But, she added, "It's a positive experience for the community, whether you are 5 or 50."