Team-taught course simultaneously impacts the improvement of science and social literacy
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Team-taught course simultaneously impacts the improvement of science and social literacy www.mrs.org/imos
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id you know that aluminum was once such a coveted material that Napoléon III had a cutlery service made of it, and a pure aluminum cap first graced the top of the Washington Monument in Washington, DC? Or that Earl Tupper’s invention of new containers using what he called Poly T (also known as Tupperware) was going nowhere quickly until Brownie Wise identified its trademark “burp”? Or that residents in the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük (in Turkey) used the same material (clay) for building, cooking, religious rituals, and burying their dead? The history of humankind is a story of the interrelationships between materials and social life. Entire civilizations are described with reference to materials: clay, iron, bronze, steel, and silicon. But our discoveries of materials do not define us. Rather, it is
how humans have chosen to use and define materials that shape our world. The Impact of Materials on Society Subcommittee (IMOS) of the Materials Research Society has partnered with faculty from engineering, liberal arts and sciences, and education at the University of Florida to develop an introductory level college course that explores this intersection between materials science and society by bringing lessons from past materials innovations into conversation with cutting-edge materials discoveries. This collaborative, interdisciplinary, project-based course teaches students that engineering shapes, and is shaped by, social and cultural variables, and that a career in engineering is not just about math and science, but also about social problem solving. In particular, this project reveals how different professions and disciplines are connected in the discovery, invention, and application of materials innovations. “We need technically literate social scientists and humanists, just like we need socially and culturally literate scientists and engineers. In order to solve today’s most urgent problems and build a better future, we need to combine multiple literacies and be able to translate between them,” said Sophia Acord, Acting Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, Professors Ken Sassaman, Sophia Acord, and Mary Ann Eaverly University of Florida. discuss the development of new curriculum materials with Danessa By targeting this Jerome, an engineering student and IMOS course alumni, during a developmental workshop at the University of Florida. course at first-semester
college students in two- and four-year institutions, it enables them to draw connections between their general education requirements and core materials science and engineering curricula throughout their undergraduate careers. The lessons introduced in the course are also directly relevant to curricula in sustainability, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and creative thinking. The goals of this course are to ■ enable materials science and engineering students to obtain the broad education necessary to understan
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