We are involved in a number of activities that promote science in the Midwest. Our community outreach activities include:

• Sponsorship of local university outreach teams
• Meetings & symposia
• Short courses
• Undergraduate student awards
• Sponsorship of local teachers to attend AVS meetings

We have recently initiated a partnership with the University of Chicago's NSF-MRSEC outreach team to develop a collection of modular scientific demonstrations for use in local museums and schools. If you are interested in learning more about these activities, you can contact the MRSEC director: Sidney Nagel.

Our partnership has enabled the MRSEC to enhance its portfolio of hands-on demonstrations used for outreach activities at local museums, Chicago Public Elementary/Middle Schools, and science outreach festivals in the Chicagoland area.

Maria Ratajczak demonstrates properties of ferrofluids to teachers and students at Navy Pier

The highlight of this year's activities was an event sponsored by the Department of Energy at Navy Pier: What's Next. The Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, gave a speech to students, faculty, and dignitaries from the Chicagoland area, then Over 400 middle school students from the Chicago Public Schools, and their teachers, visited our MRSEC demo table where we introduced them to properties of materials—both new and old—including shape memory materials, ferrofluids, and sand. These demos were initially developed by former Sr. Educational Outreach Coordinator, Dr. Seth Darling, now at Argonne National Laboratories, and refined by the current Educational Outreach Coordinator, Maria Ratajczak (Lee group), through AVS funds. Additional demo components—(e.g. ferrofluid demo packs, sand wands) were purchased with the funds to enable more participants to see/use the materials concurrently. New components—sand/iron mixtures, overhead demo of granular material packing were purchased to help reinforce the concepts of the ubiquity, variety, and structural characteristics of granular materials.

Our regular visits to the Museum of Science and Industry continue. The following are descriptions of new demo components enabled by AVS funds:

(1) A completely new demo component—on fluid flows-- was developed by former Educational outreach coordinator, Dr. Nathan Muggenburg (now at Lake Forest College), in consultation with the Director of Science and Technology, Dr. Barry Aprison. These new demos are focused on fluid flows, turbulence, and viscosity. Using rheoscopic fluid to visualize the flows of both nonviscous and viscous liquids we show a wide variety of flow patterns.

Kids examining flow patterns in fluids at MSI

The visitors are surprised that slowly stirring water with a spoon leads to wild, and chaotic motion over a large distance. They explore flow past an obstacle, and wind induced flows. Kids love to watch the fluid respond to their actions. They can produce vortex patterns characteristic of turbulent flows, and watch how they depend on the speed of motion.

All of these flows are compared in a similar setup with a more viscous fluid. The audience notices that the flows are much smoother, and less chaotic. They discover that they can still produce the vortex patterns, but that they now must move the fluid faster. This is a beginning to understanding the transition from the laminar flow regime to the turbulent flow regime.

In the case of very viscous flows, a mixing/unmixing device was developed in which a spot of color is supposedly mixed through the system by slowly turing an inner cylinder. However, on reversing the rotation of the system the fluid "unmixes," returning the colored spot to its original state. In this case the very viscous fluid and slow velocities place the system in the laminar flow regime. There is no mixing due to turbulence, instead the fluid simply folds upon itself. Reversing the flows unfolds the system, and returns the fluid to it's original state. Adults are often impressed and surprised by this unmixing behavior, and its stark contrast to the turbulent mixing in less viscous fluids.

Maria Ratajczak has also supplemented this component with the purchase of "bubble tubes" demonstrating viscosity effects in the rate of air bubble propagation.

(2) Maria Ratajczak has also developed two new sets of demos aimed at elementary school students: one demonstrating concepts of astronomy, and one demonstrating concepts of biochemistry with AVS funds. The astronomy demo set includes the purchase of pre- assembled kits, from Educational Innovations, Inc., illustrating concepts of magnetic forces; chemical reactions of color; sound; effect of UV light; solar radiation; concepts of heat, and a number of scientific "toys" illustrating orbital motion, centripetal forces, etc. The biochemistry demo set is anchored by the purchase of serpent skin (similar to dialysis tubing)--used to demonstrate semi-permeability and selective diffusion through measurement of concentration, osmotic pressure, color, volume, or mass.

(3) We have enlisted the help of the University of Chicago Physics Department Instructional Services team to determine which basic equipment should be purchased to enable the largest number of high-impact demonstrations highlighting the research at the Materials Research Center, in addition to the powerful “classic” physics demonstrations to help illustrate important concepts. These purchases are expected to both leverage and complement existing departmental/MRSEC resources, and we are currently in the process of locating the best values available. The equipment to be purchased will probably include the following: a laser/speaker/mirror system for music correlated "laser light shows", a hand-cranked vacuum pump, portable digital strobe light system, a superconductivity demonstration set, table-top Van de Graff generator, and video and projection equipment to enable larger audiences to view our demonstrations, see scientific effects more clearly, and record them for our website.

Science Club Students at the North/Kenwood Charter School

In addition to our work with local museums (The Museum of Science & Industry, Adler Planetarium, and Sci-Tech Hands on Museum in Aurora) these demonstration components/equipment are also used for activities and demos at our partner schools. Elementary/middle schools which have invited us to participate in science activities in 2004-2005 include: the North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School (science club), Ariel School (pseudo-instructional science pods), Hendricks Academy (family science night), and the University of Chicago Laboratory School (science carnival). We have also presented a selection of material property demos to elementary and middle school teachers in the University's SESAME program. Our aim is to reinforce the classroom teachers' knowledge of materials science, and to familiarize them with its applications in order for them to translate these concepts for their classroom.

Partnership with Northwestern University

Student AVS member Christina Freyman teaching middle school students about vacuum basics

The Northwestern AVS Student Chapter, affiliated and sponsored by the Prairie Chapter, performs vacuum demonstrations for local schools. Below is a report of some of their activities.

The chapter participates in HANDS (Haven and Northwestern Discover Science), which is an outreach program for 7th and 8th graders at Haven Middle School run by Materials Science graduate students. Using the vacuum set-up provided by AVS National, we demonstrate the basics of vacuum. We place a variety of objects into the vacuum chamber. Before pumping down, we would discuss everyone’s theories for what would happen.

AVS outreach with local schools

We put gloves and marshmallows into the chamber to investigate pressure effects. We investigated the concept of air pressure and the boiling temperature of water. We discussed the concept of sound waves as we listened for the timer beeping in an evacuated chamber.

We also put random objects from the room (tennis balls, rubber balls, a water bottle) and discussed what we thought would happen.

The kids really enjoy the demonstration. If you know of any good opportunities to do the demonstration, please let the chapter know.

Student Awards

The AVS Prairie Chapter supported the Hilliard Symposium of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Northwestern University in May 2004. The Symposium is the capstone event each year, where the research of senior graduate students is presented to an invited audience of industry representatives, faculty, and students. The AVS Prairie Chapter contribution funds Best Presentation Awards to several students.

From top left: Professor Mike Bedzyk (event chair), Arun Subramanian, John Stendahl, David Towner, David Rowenhorst, Professor P. M. Ajayan (keynote speaker), Leta Woo, Chantal Sudbrack, Prad Prabhumirashi, Chris Weyant, Professor Paul Lyman (AVS Prairie Chapter representative), Professor Peter Voorhees, David Cohen, Duane Goodner, Matthew Beck, Abhijeet Misra, and Dr. Jin Wang. Not pictured: Haitao Zhang.

Sponsorship of local school teachers to attend AVS meetings

Each year, the Prairie Chapter searches for local school teachers interested in continuing education opportunities with the chapter and national AVS meetings. All travel and registration expenses are covered for the teacher. This program serves as a pathway for the teacher to absorb the latest science and technology the AVS has to offer and to bring this information back to the classroom to educate the next generation of potential AVS members.

Here are some comments from Ray Lesniewski (Jones College Prep, Chicago), who attended the 2006 AVS National Meeting in San Francisco:

I actually learned how to operate and, more importantly, maintain a vacuum pump. Keeping your lab equipment in proper working order is obviously a valuable skill to learn, but it's really not something that you are taught in teacher preparation courses.

I really appreciated the conceptual approach used in this workshop. One of our activities was to use and evaluate mathematical models to determine the pumping speed of a vacuum system's motor. The instructors didn't just say, "Here's the formula you need to use to get the pump speed." They took the time to help us develop the conceptual models needed to solve the problem. That's what science education is all about.

The discussion of phase diagrams and the use of 3-D models to explain them was particularly interesting to me since this topic is in the AP Chemistry curriculum. I had never really thought of a phase diagram in three dimensions before this workshop, so it really helped me (and my students later in the year) to view this information in a totally different manner.

I appreciated learning about the various types and uses of vacuum technologies. Before the AVS workshop, I never really considered the value or necessity of doing experimentation in extremely low pressure environments. It's great to be able to share what I've learned about this area with my students when teaching about the gas laws or nanoscience. The background knowledge in the workshop's handbook provides a helpful explanation of the many uses of vacuum science.

I was happy to see the presenters discuss some of the practical applications of vacuum systems to contemporary issues such as wastewater treatment or other forms of environmental cleanup. Any time that connections can be made between the real world and science, they are more meaningful for the learner. I definitely plan on incorporating some of these examples in my classroom discussions.

I was also impressed with our tour of the various vendors' displays at the Exhibition Hall. It was evident that there was careful planning done on the part of the presenters. Instead of just turning us loose, they had us go in small groups to four different vendors to learn more detail about the various types of equipment and experimentation done in vacuum science.