This Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) in Engineering program entitled, "A Practical Approach to Integrating Nanotechnology Education into Undergraduate Curriculum", at North Carolina A&T State University (NCAT), under the direction of Dr. Dhananjay Kumar, will bring together a team of engineering faculty members who are actively involved in nanomaterials-based research to enhance undergraduate nanoscience and engineering education in the area of devices and systems. The goal of the project is to expose undergraduate students to the design, manufacturing and characterization of nanostructured materials systems and device prototypes. An interdisciplinary nanotechnology course (Nanotechnology I) with a significant hands-on laboratory component will be developed as a preparatory course and will be offered as a junior-level technical elective open to all engineering majors.
NANO-COURSE AND CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: The Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) project at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT) has established a three-pronged approach toward enhancing undergraduate nanoscience and engineering education. The emphasis of the approach was on devices and systems. A practical approach of direct engagement of students was used in ongoing research in our advanced materials laboratories. Our first activity for enhancing nanoscience and nanoengineering education was to introduce simple concepts of nanoscience and technology into existing required undergraduate engineering courses. These modules covered the core concepts of nanomaterials and unique phenomena at the nanoscale. Introducing the concepts of nanoscience and engineering at this early stage of undergraduate education was found to positively impact student interest in registering for a technical elective nanotechnology course that we developed as our second initiative. An interdisciplinary 3-credit nanotechnology course (Nanotechnology I) with a significant hands-on laboratory component was developed as a tech elective course for senior undergraduates and has attracted enrollments of 20-30, primarily from our graduating class size of approximately 50 mechanical engineers per year. The course offers a fundamental perspective related to the structure, stability and functional characteristics of nanoscale materials and systems, and also trains students in the application of available theoretical models in the interpretation of results. Under our third initiative, a limited number of undergraduates well-imbued with this foundational perspective were recruited and financially supported to engage in a semester-long research project related to nanotechnology. The course (Nanotechnology- II) was classified as "Independent Study" course under the department’s existing curriculum. Students were assigned to work for the entire semester with individual faculty members drawn from the Senior Personnel for the NUE project. The students of this class (Nanotechnology -II) were required to submit a final written report and make one mid-semester and one end-of- semester power point presentation. The students’ performance was evaluated by a panel of examiners consisting of all the NUE PIs. With our institution’s status as the nation’s leading producer of African-American engineers, the NUE efforts have provided a significant number of underrepresented minority students with training and mentoring focused on the economic and intellectual powerhouse area of nanotechnology. REU ACTIVITIES: Under the REU activities sponsored through the NUE program, undergraduate students from the home institution as well external institutions were provided opportunities to work on nano-bio related projects during summer. The undergraduate students were paired to work with graduate student working under the supervision of NUE PI and CoPIs. SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY FOR NUE STUDENTS TO VISIT AN INTERNATIONAL LABORATORY: One undergraduate student was given the opportunity to spend two weeks in the lab of Dr. Frank Witte at the Hannover Medical School, Germany.
