Dissemination of the Impact of Materials on Society (IMOS) Course through a Workshop at the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), July 16, 2016

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: The University of Florida (UF) and Materials Research Society (MRS) are conducting a half-day introductory workshop on a newly developed freshman course entitled "The Impact of Materials on Society (IMOS)". The workshop is being held July 16, 2016 for attendees at the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) Summer Meeting in Sacramento, California. The funds support scholarships for up to 30 participants, expenses for the workshop facilitators and the room configuration. Participants are primarily representatives from the two-year college systems who would like to learn more about the IMOS course and are considering piloting this course at their institutions. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: The goal of this workshop is to introduce a course entitled, "The Impact of Materials on Society" to instructors at primarily two-year college institutions. The course is designed to increase the social literacy of engineers and the technical literacy of non-engineers by exploring how engineering and society are interrelated. All of the materials for the course were developed through other government grants. The workshop leverages the participants who are already traveling to the meeting for technical purposes and so their travel expenses are covered. This workshop would give faculty intrigued by the initial information about the IMOS course, the opportunity to better understand implementation strategies and the curriculum materials. The half-day workshop at an AAPT meeting will introduce the course design, the newly completed curriculum materials and evaluation tools to potential pilot institutions, in order to broaden the impact of the course and to collect additional data on how social and scientific literacies can be taught to diverse student groups.