News & Notes - AGPA
From its inception as the outreach vehicle for the College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, the AGPA has been committed to disseminating the dynamic research conducted in the college to public understanding. To that end, our AGPA staff will soon unveil a new section on our website where our users will find video clips, narratives, animations and photos, as well as lesson plans that can bring cutting-edge research and new technologies to middle and high school classrooms. In addition, you will get to know a little more about the men and women whose talents are changing our local community and improving our world.
Our first offering features the work of Dr. Mukerrem (Miko) Cakmak, a professor of polymer engineering. Dr. Cakmak's area of research is flexible elastic electronics. In his video, Miko shares with students several examples of products derived from his research, including flexible cell phones that can change colors, television screens that can roll up and be put in your pocket, and wallpaper that becomes a changeable display of your favorite patterns. Middle school science/math teachers can use the lesson plan, Color Your World, to help students understand how one of the products of this research might change their lives in dramatic ways. The problem-solving challenge in this plan asks students to calculate the cost of painting a room (there's a lot of math involved, of course) the "old-fashioned" way. Then, using animation, introduces them to a new technology using flexible elastic electronics in which, by the touch of a finger, the room's wall transforms to the chosen color. Pretty amazing! Lastly, we challenge students to propose a use for this new technology to improve some everyday product or process.
So, as the school year 2009-2010 begins and you're looking for a new way to teach an "old concept", we hope you will look to us for 21st century applications that will put spark into your lesson plans. We welcome your feedback on our new initiative and would love to hear your ideas for classroom-appropriate activities. Contact us at: agpa@uakron.edu.
- Katharine Owens, Associate Director of Operations