4.E.1 Education and Human Resources
Goals: To excite students in the K-12 arena, using inquiry based instruction, about the science in everyday life and to expose students at all levels to the fascinating world of materials science.
Rationale: Since neither Oklahoma nor Arkansas have a tradition of high-technology industry and since both states rank near the bottom in funding and resources for K-12[169], CSPIN can have a strong effect on regional science education. In a time when standardized testing forces teachers to follow a rigid lecture-based curriculum, our role has been to revitalize the natural curiosity that children have for the world around them by bringing them into contact with authentic research. Too often the material world is reduced in school to understanding the periodic table. We hope to show students a much richer world.
Our strategy has been to design local programs for each campus tailored to the needs of the individual communities and to enhance and coordinate existing programs where possible. In particular we have chosen to supplement the standard K-12 curricula with after school programs and teaching workshops and to provide quality research experiences for high school teachers and undergraduates in our laboratories.
Inquiry Based Learning for K-12 : Under previous funding C-SPIN has supported three local programs:
(1) Sooner Elementary Engineering and Science (SeeS) at OU, (2) UA K.I.D.S. (“ K -12, I D o S cience”) and, (3) Northwest Arkansas BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology).
SeeS is an OU sponsored after-school K-5 science club run with the aid of student mentors culled from undergraduate professional and honor societies. The K-5 age group was carefully chosen in order to attract girls before they lose interest in science [170, 171]. The program provides each participating
Norman, OK school with 6 hands-on science sessions related to chemistry, electricity, and magnetism over the academic year with an average attendance of 35 kids per session. C-SPIN expanded this program in 2003 to include a Title 1 school with a relatively large minority population for Norman (11%
African-American, 8% Hispanic and 14% Native American). In 2003-04 eight schools will participate with C-SPIN providing financial resources and undergraduate and graduate student volunteers. With this renewal, C-SPIN is committed to funding a SeeS student staff position for improved organization, providing funds for equipment and expendables, and coordinating volunteers for all the sites in the SeeS program. Our desired outcome is to maintain 50% female participation up to grade 5.
GK-12 K.I.D.S is a UA program sponsored by NSF that places physics, engineering, and chemistry graduate students into Arkansas middle schools. These fellows, paired with middle school teachers, develop inquiry-based modules to spark a child’s interest in the wonder of science. CSPIN funds all of the administration of the program, and 7 of the 10 fellows accepted this year are from CSPIN labs. These fellows will use their extensive research backgrounds in materials science to develop and implement lessons with materials themes. To date, 25 fellows (10 researching with MRSEC faculty) and 12 teachers have participated in the program. Eleven of the teachers have been female and 32% of the fellows have minority backgrounds. Our evaluation team tracked 839 students in middle schools from 4 th to 6 th grade on their math standardized test scores. The control group of 776 saw a 10% decrease in scores between 4 th and 6 th grade. In contrast, the 63 GK-12 students had a 10% increase. Our desired outcome is to demonstrate even greater improvement in an expanded GK-12 group.
BEST is a robotics contest that lets junior high and high school students experience what it is like to be a scientist or engineer. UA C-SPIN promotes Northwest Arkansas BEST through volunteer participation and financial support, sponsoring an average of 20 local teams per year comprised each of 10 students.
Calleja, and Vickers serve on the NWA Hub administrative committee that provides coordination for all facets of BEST. In addition, all UA MRSEC faculty and students volunteer as BEST judges and assistants during kickoff, mall day, and game day.
Museum collaborations: CSPIN proposes a new initiative to increase the visibility of science through inquiry based learning using Oklahoma and Arkansas museums. The Oklahoma Children’s Discovery
Network is comprised of four major science museums and works in close coordination with its Arkansas counterpart. In consultation with the network, the Center has agreed to provide museum kits developed by the Penn State MRSEC. CSPIN will provide kit training while the network will facilitate distribution and coordination within each museum group. Our eventual desire is expose a thousand Oklahoma and
Arkansas children to materials science on an annual basis via this effort.

Outreach Consortium at OU and UA: A second new initiative focuses on improving the visibility and coordination of science outreach programs at OU and UA. We will develop a consortium providing links and/or contact information for all the active science, math and engineering outreach programs available at both campuses. Our desired outcome is to provide easy access for parents, teachers and students by linking to the public affairs websites of both schools and the OU K20 Center for Education and
Community Renewal in the College of Education. This center works with a network of over 800 K-12 administrators from all 77 counties in Oklahoma to integrate technology into their curriculum.
Materials Science Kits: A final K-12 initiative is a Seed Project in which teams of Education majors and
CSPIN researchers develop inquiry based materials kits. (Described in greater detail in Seeds).
Materials Research and Education for Teachers and Undergraduates :
Research Experience for Teachers: Over the past 4 years, 25 middle and high school teachers have been supported in Center laboratories. In addition to research, the program has provided teachers with opportunities for learning and collaboration within and across the OU and UA communities. Teachers will utilize center resources to develop science curriculum and design labs while collaboratively drawing from MRSEC research experiences; e.g. teacher Mary Wise, with Salamo, developed an inexpensive pair of optical tweezers that in turn helped her students understand concepts associated with materials science.
Several RETs will also be filmed while implementing each of their developed lessons. Those recordings will be compiled into an educational DVD that can also be downloaded from CSPIN’s site.
Research Experiences for Undergraduates : Both UA and OU Physics Departments have a history of successful NSF REU summer programs. The Center will continue to support an additional 3-4 students a year, using the existing REU site infrastructure. Students will be selected on talent and lack of access to research at their home institution. Over the last 4 years the UA REU has been particularly successful in recruiting under-represented groups (with 32% minority and 37% female participation; OU’s REU has a
25% female participation). This success can be attributed to the Carver Project, an existing effort at UA that develops ongoing institutional partnerships with historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Undergraduate and Graduate Education . Two graduate courses ( Advanced Nanomaterials Chemistry and
Science of Nanodevices ) have been developed with CSPIN support. Each will continue to be taught at both campuses using Internet II video-conferencing technology. Additionally, two new courses are under development at UA with the focus being photonic-electronic device design and prototyping while also including an investigation of current C-SPIN research initiatives as course topics. Financial support for these courses is provided by the Department of Education FIPSE grant awarded to Salamo and Vickers.
At the undergraduate level, Bumm and Johnson, received NSF-NUE funding for a freshman/sophomore level course in nanotechnology. This course utilizing Center facilities was taught during OU intersession and will now become an annually offered laboratory for lower division students.
Minority Outreach: OU has established ties with the re-emerging OKAMP [ OK lahoma (Louis Stokes)
A lliance for M inority P articipation] project. All OU C-SPIN personnel have agreed to be available for students needing mentors with interests in center research. We will send representatives to their meetings to discuss graduate school and explain C-SPIN research. Vickers, acting as graduate recruiter for the UA microEP and Physics programs, has an active partnership to develop long-term relationships with the LS-
LAMP organization (Louis Stokes Louisiana Alliance for Minority Participation) and the Mississippi and
Texas institutional members of the UA George Washington Carver Project. To establish a stronger relationship with the growing Hispanic population in Northwest Arkansas, CSPIN will work in partnership with Dr. Diana Gonzales Worthen, a Hispanic outreach specialist. Dr. Worthen will act as liaison to the NWA Hispanic community. She will develop a monthly newsletter to inform Spanish speaking parents about CSPIN educational functions, provide training to GK-12 fellows and teachers, and assist our KIDS evaluation team in the translation and development of all surveys.