ICorps: Polymer Semiconductor Educational Kits

University Of North Carolina At Charlotte, Charlotte NC

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impacts of this I-Corps project are to improve hands-on laboratory experiences in the field of materials science and to increase STEM awareness for students/instructors at the 9-12 and undergraduate levels. The educational kit bridges the gap between theoretical and practical molecular materials technologies. The kit is an interactive learning tool designed for interdisciplinary laboratory activities and can be used in physics, chemistry, engineering, and material science educational settings. The kits provide all needed materials, a fully developed curriculum, and training for implementation. Professional development workshops for instructors help to integrate the laboratory activities into instructor?s existing science curriculum while addressing national and international science standards. There is a significant market for hands-on laboratory activities that incorporate contemporary science experiments currently under investigation and development at the university level. School districts and science / engineering departments will likely be interested in acquiring the kits, making them a commercially impactful and important education platform. The kit is flexible and can be expanded upon to include future experiments and professional development. The kits can also be used and developed for extracurricular activities such as science fairs and competitions. This I-Corps project involves a polymer electronics laboratory kit to improve materials science education for 9-12 and undergraduate students. The three-module kit and curriculum use polymer semiconductors to provide hands-on inquiry activities integrating themes of electrical conductivity, light emission, and light-harvesting solar energy conversion. These themes are critical to contemporary materials science research and education. The kit includes materials to evaluate the electrical properties of conductive colloidal polyaniline inks, to construct a polymer light- emitting diode using polyphenylene vinylene, and to build a polymer solar cell using semiconductive polymers and nanoparticulate TiO2. Designed initially for high school science classrooms, the activities developed also meet new collegiate undergraduate education requirements for macromolecular, supramolecular, and nanoscale systems in the curriculum and can be used in undergraduate teaching laboratories. The modules and kit have also been implemented in professional development workshops for training 9−12 science educators to help integrate the laboratory activities into their curriculum. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.