Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SF7-O012
CREATING ACCESSIBLE SCIENCE RESEARCH PROJECTS FOR HIGH
SCHOOL AND UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Auni Kundu 1 , Andres Chavez 1 , Greg Carman 1 , Chris Lynch 1
1 University of California, Los Angeles, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, United States.
At the Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems Engineering
Research Center (TANMS ERC), graduate student mentors incorporated
scaffolding strategies to guide high school student groups in completing their
own summer research projects. The scaffolding learning philosophy introduces
a new concept by breaking it into smaller lessons to make challenging learning
topics easily approachable by any student. To ensure all students are able to
understand these new subjects, multiple learning styles are addressed to
account for diverse groups of students. Scaffolding learning includes visual,
verbal, physical, logical, social, and solitary learning activities to meet the needs
of diverse groups of student.
This presentation highlights the results of scaffolding learning strategies to
teach engineering topics and research techniques to students with no prior
experience in the field. Two successful projects are discussed in this
presentation in which high school students were given small lessons in
mechanical engineering and smart materials. These lessons included circuit
design, computer modeling capabilities, and some advanced theoretical
concepts, i.e., beam theory and ferromagnetic resonance. Ultimately, the
students took these lessons and applied them to a larger engineering researchoriented
project. The scaffolding technique allowed students with no experience
in engineering or academic research to not only gain new knowledge, but also
imagine themselves as the next generation of scientific researchers.
Acknowledgment:
This work was supported by NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for
Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems (TANMS)
Cooperative Agreement Award (No. EEC-1160504).
Keywords: Scaffolding, Diverse, Research
Presenting authors email: akundu@g.ucla.edu