| • Teaching and Learning: Outreach Activities in Nanotechnology | |
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Teaching
and Learning: Outreach Activities in Nanotechnology The Department of Electrical Engineering, in conjunction with the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, is one of several departments across the University offering summer research experiences for high school teachers in northwest Indiana. The program, Research Experiences for Teachers at Notre Dame (RET-ND), runs for eight weeks and includes stipends up to $5,000 for participating teachers. Electrical engineering faculty will lead seven projects based in nanotechnology: materials for nanoscale devices; scanning electron microscopy; topics in nanotechnology; fabrication and testing of semiconductor chemical sensors; exploring the nano world with scanning tunneling microscopy; software simulation tools for Quantum-dot Cellular Automata; and nanoelectronic devices operating with single electrons. In addition to the research experiences, high school teachers will participate in weekly presentations on scientific and teaching related topics. They will also meet with other instructors in the program to discuss their research, curricular and pedagogical matters, and student issues they face at the high school level. The department is also collaborating with faculty from the College of Science in the Nano-bio Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer program. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program is open to undergraduates majoring in biology, chemical engineering, chemistry, geosciences, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, or physics. After 10 weeks of hands-on research, seminars, and coursework, students will travel to Budapest, Hungary, as part of a cooperative exchange program. They will spend seven days in classes and workshops on bioinformatics, neural networks, and visual sensors. To promote their professional development, students will be required to manage a small research budget and will also be responsible for writing a report and presenting their research at the end of the summer during an undergraduate research symposium. The summer research experience involves several faculty in the colleges of engineering and science. It is directed by Mayra Lieberman, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Wolfgang Porod, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Electrical Engineering. For more information on these outreach programs, visit the Center for Nano Science and Technology at http://nano.nd.edu. [back to top] |
