The Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) seeks to accelerate the discovery, design, development, and deployment of new materials through the creation of a materials innovation infrastructure. This infrastructure is essentially a system for providing data and tools that encapsulate our existing knowledge about materials, and the means to create new knowledge. Given this approach, MGI is also deeply linked to the ongoing exponential growth in applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to materials research. This article explores the connections between MGI, the consequent need for data publication, the implications for data-driven science, and the application of AI to materials design. Examples will demonstrate how materials research is transforming in remarkable ways, and that the MGI vision of accelerated materials discovery is within reach.

We present an evaluation carried out on a large-scale teacher training activity, the festival “Science on Stage” (SonS) 2013. SonS is a European initiative offering teachers the opportunity to share ideas and teaching practices both on the national and international level. We evaluated the project’s effectiveness in pursuing clear objectives, in clearly defining the target group, and in internationally disseminating teaching projects. Our study documents the transfer of knowledge from the festival to the classroom, aims to identify the prerequisites thereof and, finally, allows formulating key factors for successful future large-scale science communication activities.

Adoption of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) into the pre-college classroom is an ideal strategy for addressing Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), specifically the Science and Engineering Practices. MSE offers core science and engineering topics that can be incorporated into existing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic (STEM) curricula through teaching modules. Using MSE as a teaching vehicle, the Center for Research on Interface Structures and Phenomena (CRISP) conducted a series of small-scale studies of its teacher professional development workshops and a student summer program, along with related teaching modules, in an effort to measure the contribution MSE has on students and K-12 STEM educators. Based on participant survey feedback, CRISP found improvement in students’ MSE knowledge, interests, and career goals. For teachers, in addition to improving their MSE knowledge, they also increased their comfort and confidence in teaching MSE concepts in their classroom. These results provide evidence for the use of MSE modules as productive teaching tools for NGSS Science and Engineering Practices, as well as producing workforce-competitive STEM students.

The US Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) has emphasized the need to accelerate the discovery and development of materials to maintain industry competitiveness in new and existing markets. While largely interpreted as an initiative arising from the materials community, it is important to address the coupling of materials with manufacturing and all other relevant aspects of product development in order to maximize its impact. The dual thrusts of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering and the MGI represent a long-term vision of industry, academic, and government stakeholders. The goal is to build a new kind of coupled experimental, computational, and data sciences infrastructure. The emphasis is on high-throughput methods to accelerate historical sequential processes of serendipitous materials discovery and largely empirical materials development by leveraging computation and modern data sciences and analytics. The notion of a materials innovation ecosystem is introduced as the framework in which to pursue acceleration of discovery and development of materials consisting of various elements of data sciences, design optimization, manufacturing scale-up and automation, multiscale modeling, and uncertainty quantification with verification and validation.

Since 2005 the West Houston Center for Science & Engineering (WHC) has provided opportunities for select cohorts of community college students to participate in summer research experiences. Participating research institutions include regional universities, NASA-JSC and Sandia National Laboratories (NM). Research activities cross numerous engineering, physical and biological sciences, and computational disciplines, and have been supported by federal agencies and corporate/educational foundations. These experiences have generated three important outcomes: (1) Providing significant motivation for students regarding university transfer and completion; (2) Generating realistic expectations for students regarding completion of their undergraduate degrees, and transitioning into the science and engineering workforce and/or graduate school; and, (3) Providing support for the creation of a formal materials science educational program at the West Houston Center. This paper describes the influence and impact that the Materials Research Society, through its members, conferences, and working committees, has contributed to the transition of the West Houston Center as it moves from a broad based science and engineering educational center to one with a concentration on materials science.

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fuel Cell Technologies Office has made significant progress in fuel cell technology advancement and cost reduction. Encouragingly, rollouts of fuel-cell vehicles by major automotive manufacturers are scheduled over the next several years. With these rollouts, enabling technologies for the widespread production of affordable renewable hydrogen becomes increasingly important. Near-term utilization of current reforming and electrolytic processes is necessary for early hydrogen markets, but transitioning to industrial-scale renewable hydrogen production remains essential to the longer term. Central to the long term vision is a portfolio of renewable hydrogen conversion processes, including, for example, the direct photoelectrochemical and thermochemical routes, as well as photo-assisted electrochemical routes. DOE utilizes technoeconomic analyses to assess the long-term viability of these emerging hydrogen production pathways and to help identify key materials- and system-level cost drivers. Sensitivity analysis from the technoeconomic studies will be discussed in connection with the metrics and fundamental materials properties that have direct impact on hydrogen cost. It is clear that innovations in macro-, meso- and nano-scale materials are all needed for pushing forward the state-of-the-art. These innovations, along with specific research and development pathways for advancing materials systems for the renewable hydrogen conversion technologies are discussed.

Despite being well versed in scientific and technical concepts, engineering students often struggle with technical writing and communication. The CLEAR (Communication, Leadership, Ethics and Research) program at the University of Utah prepares engineering undergraduates for success in their careers through coursework aimed to improve oral and written communication skills, teamwork and ethical understanding. Along with an evaluation of ongoing CLEAR curricula in engineering laboratory and design classes, we are developing tools to assess student outcomes as defined by ABET criteria. These outcomes will inform how best to implement CLEAR curricula at the University of Utah, and ensure our graduates are better prepared to join the engineering workforce.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a dynamic and on-going educational outreach program designed to support middle school science teachers and increase their understanding of the science they teach with applications to the real world and connections to the latest NIST research. In the NIST Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers, science topics are taken from NIST research pertinent to the middle school curriculum, and the research is translated for use in the classroom. During the two-week summer program teachers from around the country are given the opportunity to focus on NIST research as it relates to the middle school classroom by participating in a combination of hands-on activities, lectures, tours, and visits with scientists and engineers in their laboratories. The NIST Summer Institute is designed to increase teacher understanding of the subjects they teach, provide inquiry activities for the classroom, rekindle teachers’ enthusiasm for science, provide increased understanding of how scientific research is performed, create a learning community of teachers and scientists, and provide role models for the teachers. Teachers finish the NIST Summer Institute with a wealth of knowledge about core topics in introductory biology, chemistry, physics, and materials to integrate these topics into their existing curriculum.

The NIST Summer Institute has spawned additional related outreach activities, including “Science Afternoons at NIST,” in which teachers are invited back to NIST during the school year for events in which the focus is on a single topic such as designing buildings to resist earthquakes, infrared energy, and nanomagnetism. Based on continued requests from participants in the NIST Summer Institute, an additional program, the NIST Research Experience for Teachers program, was begun in 2011 with teachers performing research at NIST under the guidance of NIST scientists and engineers, and designing ways to take their research experience back into the classroom to share with their students. This proceeding will give examples of topics covered and activities developed in past Summer Institutes, as well as ways similar Institutes are being implemented at other locations. While not a teaching institution but a research institute focused on meeting the measurement science needs of the nation, NIST has a wealth of resources for the education community. The NIST Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers is one way of sharing these resources and building partnerships between middle school science teachers and their students and NIST scientists and engineers.

The cost and performance of materials have traditionally been the primary factors considered by designers of consumer products. Recent attempts to quantify the environmental sustainability of such products have stimulated the development of methods for assessing the reserves of raw materials compared to the demand for their use in manufacturing and impacts on energy resources. To a much more limited extent, these strategies also evaluate how chemical toxicity, arising from material production, use, and disposal, affects human and environmental health. The mechanisms and adverse impacts of toxic effects vary widely at different points within material life cycles, making it difficult to establish internally consistent methods and weighting criteria for quantitative evaluation of the environmental liability of consumer products. This article reviews advances in the methodology and application of health and ecological impact assessments of materials used in consumer products and argues for a stronger integration of toxicity metrics into materials informatics databases.

A 2010 Report to the President from the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology calls for “research and development to create “well-designed and validated examples of comprehensive, integrated instructional materials” for K-12 education. The Center for Functional Nanoscale Materials (CFNM) at Clark Atlanta University (CAU) and the Center for Science Education at Emory University have partnered in a program that provides a collaborative experience between CAU graduate students and Atlanta area high school and middle school teachers. The partnership expands Emory’s PRISM (Problems and Research to Integrate Science and Mathematics) program, a NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) program. We believe that personal and experiential collaboration between these stakeholders in materials education provides even more substantial and tangible benefits.

PRISM aims to stimulate reflection, by providing teachers and graduate students (PRISM Fellows) with an opportunity to lead in producing knowledge about pedagogical practice in STEM areas. By direct linkage with pedagogic theory, teaching practice can be subjected to continuous improvement, and it is anticipated that participants will catalyze change in both the educational and research communities.

CFNM/PRISM Program ensures that both categories of Fellows participate in professional development activities designed to propagate active learning pedagogies and reflective practice during an annual Summer Institute. Teachers are immersed in a content-rich nano- and materials science research environment, while the graduate fellows have the opportunity during the subsequent academic year to assist with instruction in local schools. Thirteen graduate students and seventeen teachers have participated in the CFNM/PRISM Program over the course of five years. Teams were formed that comprised a teacher, a CAU faculty researcher and a graduate student. Each team tackled a nanoscience research problem during a summer project, developed problem-based learning (PBL) and investigative case-based learning strategies that integrate grade-appropriate science and math content, and implemented the cases in middle school and high school classrooms.

The program has been preliminarily evaluated using online written attitudinal surveys and interviews with participants. Most striking among our observations is that teachers report an enhancement of their science process skills, including an increased ability to design and implement experiments for their students. Correspondingly, graduate students report a better understanding of the importance and practice of mentoring, as well as improved ability to articulate complex scientific concepts to lay audiences. Finally, since the student body at CAU and in these Atlanta area school systems is predominantly of African American heritage, the project also contributes to diversification of the Nation’s scientific enterprise.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) evaluates grant applications based on two criteria: intellectual merit and broader impact. The broader impact criterion (BIC), or the science outreach criterion, is intended to connect science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) research to the general public, and has grown in its relevance for successful grants. A method to increase the competitiveness of a grant application and, in turn, the quality of science outreach programs is to suggest successful science outreach models for connecting scientists to the public. Science Saturdays is a fun science lecture series for the general public that is a simple, scalable, and transferable model. Its main mission is to introduce participants to excellent communicators of science and to shatter stereotypes about those who do science. It aims to inspire and motivate children as they traverse the STEM pipeline by emphasizing that science is fun. This paper discusses the elements needed to create this outreach program and the lessons learned from its development.

We, as education outreach providers at a research center, believe research scientists and engineers have much to contribute to science education. Our job is to design programs that allow our faculty and students to share their expertise and their stories to positively impact student learning and attitudes towards STEM fields. Is it possible to show that middle school students’ interaction with scientists and engineers makes a positive difference in only one day? The National Science Foundation funded Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM), in partnership with MRS and NOVA, held a large-scale, one-day event for middle school students on January 27, 2011. This study measures the impact of that engagement on the students’ attitudes, contributing to their general attitude towards science and scientists that will ultimately determine their career choices later in life. Among other methods, focus group interviews and pre- and post-event attitude surveys were conducted and analyzed to evaluate the impact of the program.

By changing the high school science curriculum from Freshman Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics (BCP); to Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (PCB), we have an opportunity to create a new Senior level science elective. The entire high school science core curriculum has been reviewed and parts rewritten to create a coherent, integrated program based on common themes such as energy, particulate nature of matter, and forces. Nanoconcepts including size and scale and surface area to volume ratio are integrated where appropriate. In our school, we began PCB during the 2008-2009 academic year. In anticipation of these students becoming upperclassmen, a capstone elective course of Materials Science has been developed based on scientific models and literacies shaped in the PCB course sequence. Deployment of this new model centered course is set for the 2010-2011 school year.

Europe aspires to become a knowledge oriented economy by 2010 in which nanoscience and nanotechnologies play an important role. However, the development of skills and competencies in the workforce will be critical in realising the benefits offered by nanoscience and nanotechnologies. The Nanotechnology Masters Recognition Scheme aims to support technical higher education by addressing the challenges of education in nanoscience and nanotechnologies particularly at the masters' level. The paper provides an overview of the education and professional development systems in Europe with specific examples from the U.K. The paper also underlines how the scheme addresses the challenges of skills and competencies development within the European context through information dissemination, identifying gaps and professional needs, encouraging professional development, and supporting through various different measures.