Every high school science teacher will tell you that students usually learn science best in the laboratory, recreating the experiments that defined modern scientific discovery and theory. Unfortunately, many of the most interesting experiments require instrumentation and equipment that is simply too costly to provide in a classroom laboratory, with price tags that can reach into the millions of dollars. This workshop is designed to provide high school science teachers the opportunity to learn how the two premier user facilities at BNL today, the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), are used as research tools and how science teachers can use these resources to conduct real scientific measurements with their students. These resources can allow High School educators and their students to virtually go beyond the classroom walls to use the same multi-million dollar instruments Nobel Prize winning researchers are using for scientific discovery.
Teachers will learn about internet-enabled tools that can allow them to have students use these instruments remotely from the classroom. The workshop also will introduce some real-world scientific problems locally that can be investigated by students using these shopping mall size facilities. The workshop should also be of great interest to beamline scientists that wish to learn what resources are available at BNL to allow them to participate in enhancing secondary science education. Through generous sponsorship from Education and Science foundations, this workshop is offered to the community free of charge.
