Applying "Intelligent" Materials to Materials Education

A very large number of science and engineering courses taught in colleges and universities today do not involve laboratories. Although good instructors incorporate class demonstrations, hands-on homework, and various teaching aids, including computer simulations, the fact is that students in such courses often accept key concepts and experimental results without discovering them for themselves. The only partial solution to this problem has been increasing use of class demonstrations and computer simulations. We feel strongly that many complex concepts can be observed and assimilated through experimentation with properly designed materials. We propose the development of materials and specimens designed specifically for education purposes. "Intelligent" and "communicative" materials are ideal for this purpose. Specimens which respond in an observable fashion to new environments and situations provided by the student/experimenter provide a far more effective materials science and engineering experience than readouts and data generated by complex and expensive machines, particularly in an introductory course. Modern materials can be designed to literally communicate with the observer. Although some such materials can be obtained from commercial and research sources and are suitable for experiencing and learning certain materials phenomena and behavior, there has been no concerted effort to develop materials specifically for education application. We are embarked on a project to develop a series of explorations we call the Labless Labs® utilizing various degrees and levels of intelligence in materials. It is expected that such Labless Labs® would be complementary to textbooks and computer simulations and would be used to provide a reality for students in courses and other learning situations where access to a laboratory is non-existent or limited. Our initial project will center around a Lables Lab® for Polymer Science.