NNIN Education Site

Nanotechnology Education Activities at UCSB

http://www.nanotech.ucsb.edu/NanotechNew/educationhome.html

The NNIN site at University of California, Santa Barbara finds talented, motivated people who want to learn nanotechnology and train people of all ages in a clean room specifically designed for education. Our programs are designed for students and teachers to acquire hands-on experience in the laboratory while learning new concepts and apply what they have learned to help solve real-world problems.

K–12 Events and Programs:

High School:
Chip Camps
The chip camp is an intensive learning experience. High school students spend either 1, 3, or 5 days in our teaching clean room facility and learn tricks of light and chemicals to make a tiny microresistor. Longer camps allow a guided exploration of "top down" nanofabrication processes and the results can be used as a science fair project.

College & University Programs:
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program
The Research Experience for Undergraduates program brings undergraduate students into the laboratories doing real-world research in nanoscale science and technology. This 10-week program offers hands-on nanofabrication research in biology, chemistry, electronics, materials science, optics and optoelectronics, physics, and the life sciences.  Student interns work on research projects with faculty and graduate student mentors.  The primary goal of the program is to give undergraduates the opportunity to gain a positive educational experience in a supervised open laboratory setting.  Included are weekly meetings to discuss the progress of each intern’s research with other students.  The research is also presented at the REU convocation at the end of the program.

Teacher Programs:
Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Program
This program will engage 6 middle school and high school science teachers from the tri-county area in an intensive 6-week experience of real-world nanotechnology research and curriculum development at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus. 

Professional Development Workshops
Teachers will earn professional development credits for their participation in the RET program and the Summer Science Institute. We will soon offer a workshop for teachers that will offer an introduction to nanotechnology as well as a curriculum development component.