Within state and national science standards, there is a notable scarcity of polymers education in primary and secondary classrooms. To address this, we have developed a graduate student-run initiative that brings free, interactive polymers lessons to Detroit and Ann Arbor area schools. These lessons, in the form of three separate modules, are tailored to the Michigan State Science standards and have proved successful in their applicability across different grade levels. The lessons focus on introducing students to polymer science through real-world examples, experimentation, and higher-level application. We have identified two aims of our program: 1) Introducing polymers education to young students in order to build upon their current science curriculum and 2) Preparing future polymers educators (graduate students) to effectively communicate polymer science to a greater population, and have analyzed our success in these aims through performance analysis and participant surveys.

Augmenting primary and secondary education with polymer science and engineering

253rd National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.