Techtronics is an after school science enrichment program that encourages at-risk middle school students to pursue careers in engineering and technical fields. A joint venture between the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University and Rogers-Herr Middle School in Durham, North Carolina, Techtronics seeks to stimulate intellectual curiosity in engineering through exposure to four engineering disciplines: civil, mechanical, electrical/computer, and biomedical engineering. The mature program now includes fully developed lesson plans for two sections of students,
O 7-d (Sm123), brown-phase La 2 BaCuO 5 (La211), and MgO. Multilayer (M x /YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-dy ) N structures were grown by pulsed laser deposition onto SrTiO 3 or LaAlO 3 single-crystal substrates by alternate ablation of separate YBa 2-Cu 3 O 7-d (123) and M targets, at temperatures of 750°C to 790°C. The x layer thickness was varied from 0.1 nm to 4.5 nm, and the y 123 layer thickness was kept constant within a given range of 10 to 25 nm. Different M phase and x layer thicknesses caused large variations of the microstructural and superconducting properties, including superconducting transition (T c ), critical current density as a function of applied magnetic field J c (H), self-field J c (77 K), and nanoparticle layer coverage. Strong flux-pinning enhancement up to 1 to 3x was observed to occur for M additions of 211 and BaZrO 3 at 65 to 77 K, Y 2 O 3 at 65 K, and CeO 2 for H < 0.5 T. BaZrO 3 had a noticeably different epitaxy forming smaller size nanoparticles~8 nm with 3 to 4x higher areal surface particle densities than other M phases, reaching 5 · 10 11 nanoparticles cm -2 . To optimize flux pinning and J c (65 to 77 K, H = 2 to 3 T), the M layer thickness had to be reduced below a critical value that correlated with a nanoparticle surface coverage <15% by area. Unusual effects were observed for poor pinning materials including Sm123 and La211, where properties such as self-field J c unexpectedly increased with increasing x layer thickness.
He has been leading K-12 engineering outreach programs since 1988. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1992 and has been on the ECE faculty at Duke University since 1993. He is the director of Engineering K-Ph.D., a K-12 Engineering Outreach Center in the Pratt School of Engineering. In addition to his K-12 outreach work, he conducts research in microwave imaging and electrical impedance tomography.
Graduate and undergraduate Engineering Teaching Fellows develop important skills through participation in K-12 engineering outreach programs. The K-12 teaching experience augments the traditional university educational experience of the Fellows in several ways including improvement of communication skills through oral exp lanations of complex subjects to K-12 students and improvement of their ability to function on multidisciplinary teams through teamteaching content with Fellows from other engineering disciplines. These value-added impacts are affected significantly by the amount and type of training provided for the Fellows and their partnership teachers. Training in teaching methodologies including inquiry-based instruction and classroom management are necessary for effective classroom intervention. This paper examines self-reported evidence that demonstrates significant positive impact of participation in engineering outreach on Fellows' ability to communicate effectively and function on multidisciplinary teams.
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