Materials Camp draws STEM teachers back to the lab

Everyone benefits from being a student, even teachers.

Last week, nineteen middle and high school teachers hailing from Chicago to Georgia, converged on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to take part in the ASM Materials Camp. Organized by the ASM Materials Education Foundation and hosted by the University of Illinois, the Materials Camp is a weeklong series of lectures and labs aimed at strengthening the teachers’ knowledge of materials science. The camp was free of charge for attending teachers, and even earned them four continuing education credits (CEUs). 

Master teachers Bernoli Baello and Cynthia Hummel focused on the importance of hands-on, project-based learning to supplement the participants’ classwork.

“The country needs people literate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM),” said Baello. “Materials science is very broad, but with direct impact in everyday life.” For him, materials science is a perfect approach to encouraging STEM subjects, because of both its accessibility and relevance. Students often question the importance of what they learn in their textbooks. With materials science, teachers can design a project in which the students end up with a real-life product in their hand. By moving science classes towards project-based activities with worthwhile results, he believes students will become more interested in STEM subjects at an early age.

High school teachers themselves, Baello and Hummel showed the teachers methods of exciting young students about STEM learning. In the lab, camp participants conducted experiments such as dissolving the aluminum from a can of soda and creating a styrofoam football out of expanded polystyrene beads.

While being an enlightening experience for the teachers, the ASM Materials Camp will undoubtedly prove to be an invaluable one for their students back home. Having learned the skills themselves, the teachers will now be able to incorporate their newfound knowledge into the curricula at their own schools.

The enhancement of STEM education at the secondary level is a goal shared nationwide, evidenced by President Barack Obama’s Educate to Innovate initiative, which commenced in 2009.  

“We need to make this a priority to train an army of new teachers in these subject areas (STEM), and to make sure that all of us as a country are lifting up these subjects for the respect that they deserve,” Obama said at the 2013 Annual White House Science Fair. 

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has responded to this cause in more ways than one. Only a few blocks from the ASM Camp, young girls participated in the GEMS (Girls Engaged in Math and Science) Summer Camp. i-STEM, a campus-grounded coalition, organizes countless events and programs dedicated to the promotion of STEM education at young ages.

With the knowledge and skills these teachers have acquired this last week, they have taken a vital step towards “influencing the next generation of engineers and scientists,” as stated on the ASM Education Foundation’s website.