RET Site: Integrated Nanomanufacturing

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The primary objective of this renewal RET Site: Integrated Nanomanufacturing, hosted by the Boston University Photonics Center (BUPC), is to immerse teachers in a six-week summer program that focuses on interdisciplinary research experiences. Through the interdisciplinary research, teachers are immersed in an exploration of the design, fabrication, and application of nanometer-scale components in optical, electronic, mechanical and biomedical systems. The teachers will strengthen their capacity in science and engineering practices through their participation, enabling them to engage their students with engineering concepts within the sciences. Mentored research projects challenge participants to engage in engineering problem solving, and the knowledge gained will help participants develop sustainable curricula and activities in STEM education. RET teachers will return to their classrooms with an improved and relevant skill set to foster their student's interest in engineering disciplines and to succeed with the ambitious educational goals of the Massachusetts Adapted Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). This RET Site is focused on underserved schools in the greater Boston area with the goal of recruiting participants from a diverse group with 80% of the teachers coming from resource-limited (high needs) schools. Additionally, teachers from schools with high percentages of underrepresented students in STEM and/or high percentages of low-income families will be encouraged to participate. The RET Site will work directly with STEM Nexus from the Greater Boston area and Eastern Massachusetts to target schools and individual teachers that have interest in STEM but have limited resources to implement these activities. This site will also engage local Boston area companies as potential research locations for RET participants and longer-term partners in K-12 outreach activities. Integrated nanomanufacturing research is an inherently interdisciplinary intellectual area that is evolving rapidly at the intersecting frontiers of microelectronics, optical science, materials engineering, and biomedicine. Three thematic research areas will serve as the foundation for this RET Site: three broad themes of integrated nanomanufacturing: nanophotonics, nanostructures, and nanomedicine. While engaged in mentored discovery of new devices and fabrication at the nanoscale level to explore optical systems, participants will develop critical skills, awareness and confidence necessary to advance in academics and research in the future. The summer experience involves training sessions, hands-on nanofabrication tool training activities, scientific research in partner laboratories, seminars on classroom integration, and faculty pedagogy discussions. Participants will also be introduced to the idea of Societal Engineers, a core concept at Boston University to develop engineers who can connect their training to integrate content and applications reflecting how science and engineering is practiced in the real world. This is the basis of the case study curriculum developed and piloted from the initial RET Site at local schools in Massachusetts, with the renewal promising to disseminate the curriculum widely and develop more focus on physics and chemistry.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.