To date the scrolled morphology of γ-phase poly­(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) has been witnessed via high temperature melt crystallization of crystalline thin films and through imaging of chemical etched PVDF bulk films. Here we show the first growth and characterization of free-standing γ-phase PVDF scrolls via solution crystallization. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy have been used to characterize and to further understand the fundamental preferred crystalline habit of the γ-phase of PVDF.

Insects known as leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) produce hierarchically structured nanoparticles known as brochosomes that are exuded and applied to the insect cuticle, thereby providing camouflage and anti-wetting properties to aid insect survival. Although the physical properties of brochosomes are thought to depend on the leafhopper species, the structure–function relationships governing brochosome behavior are not fully understood. Brochosomes have complex hierarchical structures and morphological heterogeneity across species, due to which a multimodal characterization approach is required to effectively elucidate their nanoscale structure and properties. In this work, we study the structural and mechanical properties of brochosomes using a combination of atomic force microscopy (AFM), electron microscopy (EM), electron tomography, and machine learning (ML)-based quantification of large and complex scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image data sets. This suite of techniques allows for the characterization of internal and external brochosome structures, and ML-based image analysis methods of large data sets reveal correlations in the structure across several leafhopper species. Our results show that brochosomes are relatively rigid hollow spheres with characteristic dimensions and morphologies that depend on leafhopper species. Nanomechanical mapping AFM is used to determine a characteristic compression modulus for brochosomes on the order of 1–3 GPa, which is consistent with crystalline proteins. Overall, this work provides an improved understanding of the structural and mechanical properties of leafhopper brochosomes using a new set of ML-based image classification tools that can be broadly applied to nanostructured biological materials.

A national need exists to effectively engage women and people categorized as minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and career paths. Given the minimal existence of standards and accreditation boards for engineering design and holistic engineering practice in K–12 contexts, we must better understand how said engineering design and holistic engineering practice affects the learning and identity formation of K–12 students. Here, 50 rising 9th–12th grade girls are exposed to either a socio-ethics enhanced engineering curriculum or a standard engineering curriculum through a week-long STEM summer camp. Qualitative methods are used to conduct a thematic analysis on the engineering language used by students in each curriculum group. Significant differences in language and attitudes towards engineering and the practice of STEM subjects is observed through the incorporation of ethics and humanities into a standard model engineering curriculum. The study presented in this paper demonstrates that students have a tendency towards describing scientific ideas through abstract terms, while a group who participated in the social science integrated camp tended to describe scientific ideas using social-emotional terms. Lastly, students who participated in the camp with integrated social sciences displayed an expanded view and sense of responsibility for the society for which their science is developed to serve. These results could have implications on how STEM subjects are communicated to attract and sustain student interest.

In March 2020, many K-12 students were told to go home and log onto their computers with no sign of returning to school in the spring. Students received a variety of different experiences ranging from packets of worksheets to several live Zoom calls during the week with their teacher to continue learning the curriculum. Through this experience, we learned that there is no smaller classroom than a family's dining room and there is no better way to personalize instruction than through a parent or other family member.Similar to transitioning teaching and learning to a virtual environment, the logistical issues that arise through the process of converting traditional face to face summer camps into fully virtual summer camp experiences are many. Some of the important issues to consider are relevant to both in-person and virtual camp contexts, such as:

Understanding how insect-derived biomaterials interact with light has led to new advances and interdisciplinary insights in entomology and physics. Leafhoppers are insects that coat themselves with highly ordered biological nanostructures known as brochosomes. Brochosomes are thought to provide a range of protective properties to leafhoppers, such as hydrophobicity and anti-reflectivity, which has inspired the development of synthetic brochosomes that mimic their structures. Despite recent progress, the ultra-high anti-reflective properties of brochosome structures are not fully understood. In this work, we use a combination of experiments and computational modeling to understand the structure-, material-, and polarization-dependent optical properties of brochosomes modeled on the geometries found in three leafhopper species. Our results show that that Fano resonance is responsible for the ultra-high anti-reflectivity of brochosomes. Whereas prior work has focused on computational modeling of idealized pitted particles, our work shows that light-matter interactions with brochosome structures can be tuned by varying the geometry of their cage-like nanoscale features and by changing the arrangement of multi-particle assemblies. Broadly, this work establishes principles for the guided design of new optically active materials inspired by these unique insect nanostructures.