Old Colony’s Metal Fabrication and Joining teacher, Kris Garcia, attended the first-ever ASM Materials Science camp at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston during the second week of July.  Twenty-two teachers, mainly science teachers or technical-education teachers, attended the 5-day workshop.  They learned the basics of Materials Science and its applications, and conducted many labs and activities which elucidated the properties of materials, and which are low-cost and suitable for students.

Materials Science involves physics, chemistry and engineering and is called ‘the enabling technology’: most inventions rely on some new material with special properties.  New England is a center of Materials Science research and development work, and there is always a need for experts in this field.  All those attending said at the end of the week, that they had learned many new ways to engage their students in the coming school year, and they thought that many of the activities would be “fun and fascinating” for the students, and easy to integrate into their lessons.

The camp was free for the teachers.  Major contributions to the camp’s organization were made by the Educational Foundation, and the Boston and Rhode Island chapters of ASM International, the National Association of Corrosion Engineers, and also by local companies H.C. Starck Inc. of Newton, Instron Corp. of Norwood and Wyman-Gordon of Grafton, as well as Wentworth Institute of Technology.   For more information see the ASM website at www.asminternational.org.