Raul Carrillo
ENC 1102-14
Professor Stephen Guenzel
3/31/14
The Need for Nanotechnology Education and Education Reform
Although the subject might be obscure to some or science-fiction to others, the field of
nanotechnology has had an impressive increase in growth, breakthroughs, and applications over
the past few decades. According to the National Nanotechnology Initiative, nanotechnology or
nanoscience is defined as “the understanding and control of matter at the nanoscale, at
dimensions between one and one hundred nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel
applications.” These applications range everywhere from human engineering to environmental
safety. However the question must be asked, if this technology already exists why is not seen in
everyday life? A part of the reason is because this field is still relatively new, with not enough
people educated enough in the subject to be able to provide a workforce capable of handling too
large of a demand for this technology. Which brings up another question, how does the general
public become educated in this subject?
This is a vital question to ask when examining the growth of nanotechnology. The
advances that nanotechnology has brought to society are apparent without many knowing these
advances are there. People see that cellular phones are becoming smaller, computers are
becoming thinner, and all of this would not be possible without nanoscience. In order for this
technology to keep growing, it is important for people to know how and why this technology is
possible and to recognize nanotechnology when they see it. One of the most logical answers to
this question would be to bring nanotechnology to the classrooms. The school curriculums
currently in place ranging from kindergarten all the way though undergraduate school do not take
into account the breakthroughs that nanotechnology has had in the last few decades. The
impressions that most students have a nanotechnology come from movies and fiction, but what
they do not know is that rearranging molecules as humans see fit is something that is very
possible and happening in present day. By implementing the concepts of nanotechnology into
education will have an impact that is beneficial to many people. This will do more than simply
increase the number of employees in this field. Since the field of nanotechnology is still in its
infancy, there is still plenty of new grounds to explore, new concepts to discover, with
applications as broad as imagination allow. An increase in education would allow for a growth of
industry, and increase an knowledge, and a future generation of students that will be betterequipped to live in a world full of this new technology.
Since the exact age at which a student can begin to understand the basic ideas behind
nanotechnology is still unknown, there are some experts who argue that introducing these ideas
at an early age would be most beneficial. In the debate of what age to begin nanotechnology
education, there are studies that show that students responded well after being introduced to
these concepts as early as elementary school leading all the way through high school. Young
students usually have a very confused impression of what nanotechnology entails, but by being
introduced to the background of nanotechnology at an early age in a classroom, these students
can have a clearer and better-informed image of what nanotechnology really is. In one of these
studies performed by two engineering graduate students sponsored by the National Science
Foundation, a word-association survey showed that the preconceptions that students had of
nanotechnology were mostly shaped by popular culture, movies, and video games (Pelleg et al,
2011, pg.2). However, in this same study, students in a public magnet school who participated in
an engineering elective were introduced to a series of nanotechnology lessons twice a week for
two months. When this survey was given again at the end of the two months, according to Pelleg
(2011), “Overall the nanotechnology unit had a positive impact on the student’s perceptions of
nanotechnology” (pg.5). The change in perceptions of this science went from ill-informed
impressions to having a small background in this new technology which helps relate nanoscience
to more fields of science, such as medicine and engineering. By acquiring this knowledge at an
early age, it allows for the student’s interest in this new and emerging field to grow.
One of the problems that emerges when considering beginning nanotechnology at this
age is that, due to the rapid growth in knowledge and applications of this technology in recent
years, current elementary and high school teachers might not have the background in this field to
bring the concepts of nanotechnology to their classrooms. In order for education to begin as early
as elementary school, these teachers would need a means of which to become informed on this
technology and how to implement these ideas into their curriculum. In Taiwan, the country with
the largest nanotechnology program (Yang, 2004, pg. 44), research has already begun on
defining a method to educate K-12 teachers on nanotechnology. In a study funded by the K-12
Nanotechnology Program in Taiwan, 193 teachers from 169 schools participated in a project in
which they worked with engineering university professors. In this project, teachers attended
training workshops, developed lesson plans, and were introduced to nanotechnology-friendly
teaching material (Lee et al, 2006, pg.142). After this program was carried out for two years, Lee
(2006) states that teachers went “From knowing very little about nanotechnology to developing
teaching materials, giving lectures to peer teachers, and writing text to introduce
nanotechnology”. This study also reports that nanotechnology programs such these can give
teachers more confidence in themselves from this new education which led to teachers have a
renewed energy for learning (pg. 145).
Although these studies have evidence to support that the elementary/high school
community responded well to the introduction of nanotechnology education, some drawbacks
were also discovered. One of these drawbacks was that nanotechnology involves very complex
concepts (Newberry) and not every teacher was as intrigued by this education and found it hard
to grasp the basic ideas, let alone teach it other people. In Lee’s study, they found that teachers
with backgrounds in physics and chemistry responded to the training programs much better than
those with backgrounds in social sciences and humanities (Lee, 2006, pg. 143). Due to this, the
organized training programs would have to change depending on the experience of a particular
teacher (Jackson, 2010, pg.2). Another problem that the complexity of nanotechnology brought
out was that learning its concepts is toll-taking commitment for both student and teacher. The
teachers must commit time out of their daily lives to this new learning, which requires them to
have well-developed time management skills to balance out responsibilities already in place with
the time it takes to learn and master the material. Many teachers participating in these education
programs requested for time off from their teaching duties. In some cases, even this release time
was not enough. Lee (2006) observed that:
“After working for a year or longer…many teachers felt exhausted. Their initial interest
was challenged by the time and energy required to attend all the meetings, master the contents,
and produce the lessons…the time and energy required took its toll on the participating teachers”
(pg. 146).
Bringing nanotechnology to the elementary and high school arena showed a positive
response by most students and teachers, mainly because their interest was sparked in an up and
coming industry. Studies have shown that students can understand the basics of this technology,
teachers also have the capacity to master the important concepts of this field and an ability to
transfer that knowledge back to the students. However, implementing this knowledge into
existing curriculum does have its obstacles. If the nanotechnology community and the
educational community hope to reform k-12 education, many precautions would be needed to
make sure that these obstacles can be overcome while still maintaining a good teaching
environment for students, teachers, and those involved in the school community.
Although it is important to instill the basics of nanotechnology at an early age, the
concepts that nanotechnology entails can prove to be too complicated to be fully comprehended.
This is one of the reasons why parts of the nanotechnology and education community focus more
on bringing nanotechnology to the university level. There are a number of ways of doing this,
however, similarly to bringing nanotechnology to K-12 education, integrating its concepts into
existing curriculum is a challenge. Nanotechnology is an application of many other disciplines,
such as physics, chemistry, engineering, and biology. Therefore, turning nanoscience into a
major would require the knowledge of all of these fields and more. A more manageable approach
to bringing nanotechnology education to college classrooms would be to alter existing major
programs to becoming more nanotechnology-friendly. This can be done by offering courses
specifically dedicated to nanotechnology or by bringing the concepts of nanotechnology into
existing courses.
Students studying a field that involves nanotechnology can benefit from these courses. In
2006, the National Science Foundation awarded an interdisciplinary group at the University of
Cincinnati a Nanotechnology Education Grant, Integration of Nanoscale Science and
Engineering into Undergraduate Curricula (Bickle, 2006, pg. 1). With this grant, the University
of Cincinnati offered two courses to engineers and scientists. These courses were titled,
Introduction to Nanoscale Science & Technology and Experimental Nanoscale Science and
Technology. Through the use of these courses, students were introduced to fundamentals of
nanotechnology, such as nanoelectronics and nanobiotechnology, as well as the ethics involved
in nanotechnology, such as security and rights violations (Bickle, 2006, pg.2). From these
courses, students were exposed to ongoing-nanotechnology research and experienced another
way in which all these fields can be interconnected.
Just how exactly to bring nanotechnology education to present and future generations will
continue to be an active debate in which nanotechnology programs from all over the world will
continue to discuss. As nanotechnology continues to grow in industry and knowledge, the
demand for a work force will also grow, as well as the necessity for consumers that are familiar
with the impacts that this technology will have on society. For these reasons, this debate must be
brought to the forefront of education reform.
Bibliography
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