Annual Materials and Manufacturing Summer Teachers Institute
The Materials and Manufacturing Summer Teachers Institute is a school‐to‐career initiative that targets STEM skills instruction in the New Haven and Bridgeport Public Schools grades 7‐12. The project is sponsored by the New Haven Manufacturers Association (NHMA) and the Center for Research on Interface Structures Phenomena (CRISP), a National Science Foundation‐funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and Yale University. Through the professional development of their science teachers attending the institute, students will experience in their classrooms and school laboratories how the STEM skills of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are integrated in the manufacturing industry to create products out of materials. This introduction will provide insights that increase academic achievement in science and mathematics and prepare students for internships and hands‐on school‐to‐career opportunities in high school. An objective of the project is that early preparation will also provide students with a foundation of knowledge and expertise that will lead to college and careers grounded in the STEM skills as they relate to manufacturing and industry.
2016 Fall Public Lecture
The Mysteries of Sand: with Dr. Corey O’Hern and Dr. Thibault Bertrand
Conventional liquids (such as water, milk, and oil) and solids (such as ice, wood, and metal) are made of atoms that interact via attractive, “sticky” forces. In contrast, dry sand is composed of grains that only interact via purely repulsive forces, which prevent grains from passing through each other. The fact that sand grains are much larger than atoms and are not sticky gives rise to interesting properties that differ from those of conventional solids and liquids.