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Background: Given the continued need to educate the public on both the meteorological and engineering hazards posed by the severe winds of a tornado, an interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) module designed by the faculty from the Oceanography and Mechanical Engineering Departments at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) was developed to engage students ages 12 to 16 in the fields of meteorology and engineering. Interdisciplinary educational modules such as this one are becoming increasingly common components of academic outreach programs, but to our knowledge, this is one of the first to combine the fields of meteorology and engineering. While many studies have examined changes in student engagement and interest in the STEM fields as a result of participating in interdisciplinary activities such as this one, relatively fewer have focused on quantifying changes in student content knowledge. The primary purposes of this paper are to (1) describe our interdisciplinary STEM module in detail and (2) report immediate changes in students' knowledge on basic meteorological and engineering content as a result of their participation in the module. Results: Results from a quick, easy-to-administer assessment instrument given to students immediately before and after their participation in the 1-h module indicated that they learned basic content in both meteorology and engineering. Mean improvement of scores on the assessment questions was 40.2%, a change that was statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Other studies that focus on quantifying student learning may wish to lengthen the time between student participation in the module and the administration of the post-module assessment. Conclusions: Our interdisciplinary module integrated material from meteorology and engineering and was successful at promoting student learning. We recommend that other institutions consider developing similar interdisciplinary STEM activities, and we particularly encourage the development of activities that relate to current events. Finally, we recommend assessing content learning as another way to measure the success of interdisciplinary STEM activities.

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Gas atomized feedstock particles of an Al-13Co-26Ce alloy system were sprayed using the Cold Spray deposition technique. The microstructures of the coatings produced are examined and the mechanical characteristics, in particular the bending fatigue and the bond strength, of the Al-Co-Ce coatings are reported. The results show that the Al-Co-Ce coatings improved the fatigue behavior of AA 2024-T3 specimens when compared to uncoated and Alclad specimens. During the bond strength tests, the bonding agent failed and no delamination of the coating from the substrate occurred. The microstructural features of the feedstock powder were also found in the coatings. It is suggested that the increase in the fatigue properties of the specimens can be attributed to the residual compressive stresses induced in the coatings and to the high adhesion strength of the coatings to the substrates.

We present and discuss our findings on the identified causes for the differences of the results of two usability studies on the borrowed use of Gesture Therapy, a virtual rehabilitation tool for the cognitive stimulation and physical activation of elders. The studies focused on usability aspects including perceived usefulness, ease of use, intention of use and user experience. In the first study, we used self-report techniques to gather data, and found that previous technological experience had a significant effect on the perceived anxiety of elders; while on the second study, we used indirect observation techniques to gather data, and found that previous technological experience had a significant effect on the perceived enjoyment of elders. After a further analysis of the video recordings of the playing sessions, we identified that elders developed two different approaches to their using the application (explore-and-learn and score-and-compete), which could be related to their previous technological experience, and explain the identified differences. We observed that in the presence of problems, the response of participants was different depending on the adopted behavior. Based on this evidence, we distilled a set of preliminary guidelines to foster or inhibit certain behaviors and outcomes related to the effect of previous experience that were observed during our evaluation studies of virtual tools for the cognitive stimulation and physical activation of the elderly.