NASCENT: Research Experiences for Teachers at University of Texas
About NASCENT (paraphrased from website):
Nano-manufacturing Systems for mobile Computing and Energy Technologies (NASCENT), funded by the National Science Foundation, is a partnership between The University of Texas at Austin, The University of New Mexico, The University of California at Berkeley, Indian Institute of Science, and Seoul National University. NASCENT focuses on creating high throughput, reliable and versatile nano-manufacturing systems through research, education, and industrial partnerships. It emphasizes applications in the area of mobile computing technologies which will impact healthcare, education, commerce, communications, computing and lifestyle. Mobile devices are used to set the goals and priorities of center manufacturing systems.
NASCENT Engineering Research Center hosts a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. Each summer, math and science teachers from partner schools participate in a 7 week program working alongside faculty and graduate students, participating in high-level research projects within the field of nano-manufacturing. In addition to the research component, teacher’s develop and teach engineering-based lessons that connect current research in engineering to K–12 science and mathematics curricula in the classroom, and promote engineering as an exciting career that allows K–12 students to apply their math and science education to real-world problems.
Lesson Created Based on Summer Research:
Students will engage in a redesign of a serpentine heater for an Engineering PhD student’s research from the University of Texas. Students will receive communication from UT expressing the need for the redesign. The researcher expressed a need for the heater to be circular versus its current design of a rectangle. Students will redesign, model and present their idea for the new heater. Teams with successful designs will actually create their heaters in the lab at Pickle Research Center. At least one successful design will be tested and added to the actual research occurring at UT. Through this project students will explore the ideas of 2D figures and circles as they convert a rectangular shape into a circular design. Students will also engage in the engineering design process with an emphasis on the redesign portion of the process.