Hands-on classroom learning in material engineering

Several hands-on, classroom based activities have been developed for use in a material science and engineering course taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Department of Chemical Engineering. These short (10 to 20 minute) in-class activities are inexpensive, easy, safe and do not require access to a laboratory, nor expensive testing equipment. The activities include: disassembling of consumer goods, building unit cells, crystallizing a super cooled liquid, testing tensile and compressive strength, testing ductility, cold working, concentrating stress, and observing electro-chemical corrosion. The designed activities highlight basic fundamental ideas from material science and help students build their working knowledge of materials behavior. This project has been implemented twice and results of student surveys show an increase in student interest and reported motivation. However, classroom assessment showed little difference in student achievement on exams.