Teacher workshop participants at Colorado School of Mines learn about CMI and critical materials.
CMI education and outreach ranges from youth to adult, with an emphasis on workforce development
M-STEM Workshop, November 5-6: Graduate students flocked to the CMI booth at the Materials in STEM (M-STEM) workshop at the University of Alabama, Birmingham’s School of Engineering. M-STEM is a national workshop bringing together educators and industry representatives for two days of networking and educational delivery and workforce strategies from the best educators and presenters in the materials community. CMI hosted an informational booth promoting the many research accomplishments of CMI. More than 100 industry members, professors, community college instructors and high school teachers visited the exhibits.
CMI Museum Exhibit, October update: Critical materials on display at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum CMI exhibit. About 25 percent of the exhibit changes each year. In October, exhibit specimens added to the CMI exhibit included new ore minerals to reflect the recent additions to CMI’s research portfolio.
DECtech outreach: DECtech is a Colorado School of Mines outreach program designed especially for girls. Program leaders are women students at Mines who are passionate about sharing their subjects of study with the next generation. The DECtech mission is to engage girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by introducing them to various subjects with an interactive, engaging, and hands-on approach. The event included a one-hour exhibit tour and interactive demo with the CMI toolkit. The event focused on magnets, phosphors criticality, and the importance of mining while soliciting volunteers from the group through a question/answer format that included the scientific method approach to magnet strength demos.
On Aug. 10-11, CMI offered a workshop for 10 teachers to provide lessons developed by teacher researchers that centered on the CMI outreach toolkit. During an evening session, student aide Vivian Johnson skillfully guided teachers through the CMI exhibit at the Colorado School of Mines geology museum. The workshop included lessons developed and delivered by two past teacher researchers. Two teachers who initially vetted the toolkit kept the audience engaged for the day. The workshop started with introductory lessons in geology and mining of materials given by Mr. Mark Leatherman; followed by a lesson in phosphors and energy efficient lighting by Dr. Danielle Ladd, and a lesson in engineering materials and recycling by Mr. Matt Brown. Teachers gained knowledge of critical materials and resources for deploying lessons in their classroom this year. The workshop included an overview of how to contact CMI for school visits, museum visit opportunities and the online tool kit check out process at the museum.
From May to June 2018, CMI at Colorado School of Mines hosted a teacher researcher to learn about and support work in recycling hard drives. A teacher researcher in a laboratory at Colorado School of Mines.Mark Leatherman, geology and chemistry faculty at Arapahoe Community College and Red Rocks Community College, worked with CMI project leads Pat Taylor and Erik Spiller and graduate student Brandon Ott. In the photos, Mark is making X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) samples for analysis and working on the dilution of a sample. From this sample he will determine the composition of the rare earth magnets from various hard drives.
On Feb. 16, to highlight National Engineers Week, CMI, Colorado School of Mines and Lockheed Martin mentored prospective students who are interested in STEM careers and the aerospace industry. youth explore critical materials during engineer week at Colorado School of Mines. The day started with lab tours and demonstrations hosted by the Critical Materials Institute, the Center for Space Resources, the Geology Museum and the Colorado Fuel Cell Center. During a mentoring luncheon, 28 Lockheed Martin engineers who are Colorado School of Mines alums joined 20 CSM students and 40 Colorado high school students.Youth explore critical materials during engineer week at Colorado School of Mines
To train and prepare professionals in the field, CMI offered a post doctoral/graduate student professional meeting at Colorado School of Mines, with grad/postdoc presenters from national laboratories and universities, Jan. 22-23 link to pictures
