Student understanding of nanoscience through the gecko’s surface to surface interactions

• Autores: Beth Rajan Sockman, John Ristvey, Christine S. Jones
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 28, no. Extra 5, 2012, págs. 1068-1077
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Nanoscience education requires learning in a meaningful context. In the NanoLeap unitInvestigating Static Forces in Nature: TheMystery of the Gecko, high school students were introduced to an interdisciplinary approach in nanoscience. As a summativeassessment, 100 high school students wrote essays responding to the question, ‘How does the gecko adhere to a ceiling?’ Usingdesign based research and qualitative theme analysis, researchers analyzed 100-student essay using the original scores given by theirteachers. The findings supply four major themes and five subthemes that highlight trends in student understanding. Expectedly,students accurately described physical characteristics of the gecko, surfaces, and the coinciding principles of force at the nanoscalelevel. With language, more students used colloquial terms to describe scale than used references to numbers. Unexpectedly, almosthalf the students used words to describe their sense of wonder and value of nanoscience to understanding their world.