Toney

Elementary Arts Lab teaches science concepts through creative expression

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 18:22:15 +0000

Elementary Arts Lab teaches science concepts through creative expression Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/10/2022 - 11:22

Jonathan Raab

Students created models based on atomic structures

Science and creativity went hand in hand at University Hill Elementary School thanks to researchers from the Toney Group and graduate students from the Theatre & Dance Program. The collaborative project taught third graders about STEM subjects through art, music and dance activities.

Emma Antonio, a postdoc in the Toney Group, was interested in how art and movement could be used to communicate scientific concepts to elementary school students.

“The goal was to focus on curiosity, play and creativity,” Antonio said. “By inspiring children to explore science in the world around them, I was keen to challenge conventional ideas about what science is and who it is for. I was also excited to provide CU Boulder students with an opportunity to engage with young people, build an interdisciplinary community across campus and develop skills outside the lab.”

She reached out to the Theatre and Dance Program and connected with graduate students Katerina Lott and Christina Mitchell. The group then contacted Mary Powell and Becca Spence of University Hill Elementary, who teach art and music, respectively. Antonio won a CU Outreach and Engagement community impact grant for the project.

Together, they developed what would become the Elementary Arts Lab.

A lesson on sizes of objects in outer space inspired artwork

“Christy Mitchell and I were the artists of the group, working with our friends from the science side,” said Katerina Lott, a second year MFA student in the Dance program. “We wanted to create a truly blended curriculum that explores art and science together — using art to explore and embody science concepts, and using science to inform and provoke our art-making.”

The group developed a series of lesson plans for third graders to explore science concepts including atoms, light and color, sound, states of matter, the scale of atoms to galaxies, weather and the water cycle.

“This was a unique experience for students as they have missed many learning opportunities due to the restrictions of COVID,” said Mary Powell, art teacher at University Hill Elementary. “They were eager for activities that were beyond the usual scope of third grade and were eager to meet the CU Boulder students and use technology as a bridge between their learning world and that of the scientists and dancers.”

Powell saw the Elementary Arts Lab as a way to challenge students to consider their perspectives and thoughts about science, dance, movement and art.

“Working with the dance students and teachers was such an enriching experience as we generated ideas, shared our expertise and delivered the sessions together,” Antonio said. “As well as the all-round excitement about the project, I was delighted by reports that the children were ‘not just learning science, they were thinking like scientists’ as well as comments from CU Boulder students who felt that thinking about topics in new ways had improved their own understanding.”

The group taught nine lessons to 75 third grade students during the spring 2021 semester. Antonio, Lott and Mitchell were joined by science and engineering students and postdocs Elizabeth Allen-Cole, Tom Chaney, Luis Kitsu, Andrew Levin, Trisha Nickerson, Lacey Roberts and Nick Weadock. Together, they introduced the concepts to the students, and teachers Powell and Spence would continue to explore the concepts over the course of the week.

“It was really wonderful to see the children responding to and getting excited about what we were bringing in,” Lott said. “I have a lot of experience teaching children, particularly in an elementary school setting, so I was excited to join the project. I am also very passionate about advocating for arts education in public schools. I am very inspired by our mission, a big part being to challenge stereotypes and preconceptions about what a scientist or an artist is, and who can be a scientist or an artist.”

Professor Michael Toney of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering lauded the Elementary Arts Lab.

A student's sand painting, made during the lesson on atoms

“I am exceptionally proud of the CU Boulder postdocs and graduate students for their innovative outreach to the Boulder Valley School District [BVSD] elementary schools to foster interest in STEM through the use of dance and art,” Toney said. “This is a wonderful demonstration of the impact that a group of talented and passionate CU Boulder postdocs and students working with teachers can collectively have in the broader Boulder community.”

In the fall, the group worked with BVSD to develop resources on energy and waves for all 75 fourth grade classrooms. The lesson plans meet the national Next Generation Science Standards and have also been translated into Spanish for bilingual learners.

Sara Nelson, a curriculum developer with the Strategic Initiatives department of BVSD, praised the collaboration.

“The lessons created by the Elementary Arts Lab group are innovative and creative ways for kids to explore rigorous science concepts in the way kids do it best: with their whole bodies and minds,” Nelson said. “I can’t wait to see how our fourth grade teachers use these enriching resources this year.”

The Elementary Arts Lab is currently looking for more opportunities to collaborate with teachers and young students, and is seeking to expand its team of artists and scientists. Learn more about the program here.

Postdocs and graduate students combined art, movement, dance and science for students from the Boulder Valley School District.

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McGehee and Toney recognized as highly cited researchers

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 17:22:44 +0000

McGehee and Toney recognized as highly cited researchers Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/22/2021 - 10:22

Jonathan Raab

Two faculty from ChBE were recognized at highly cited researchers for 2021.

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Faculty collaboration earns $2M NSF award for post-consumer plastic waste research

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 16:09:19 +0000

Faculty collaboration earns $2M NSF award for post-consumer plastic waste research Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/25/2021 - 10:09

Jonathan Raab

Single use plastics represent an environmental challenge that researchers at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering hope to address.

The proliferation of plastic products has created an environmental challenge: what should be done with unusable, discarded plastic waste that can harm the environment? Faculty from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering are working on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, Hydrogenolysis for Upcycling of Polyesters and Mixed Plastics, to address this serious environmental issue.

Denver Business Challenge Endowed Professor Will Medlin, James and Catherine Patten Endowed Professor Ryan Hayward, Assistant Professor Kayla Sprenger, Professor Michael Toney and their respective groups are collaborating on this project, which the NSF is funding through a $2 million grant.

“Figuring out how to deal with post-consumer plastic waste is a major societal problem,” Medlin said. “We were all independently interested in working on this problem, but were approaching it from different angles. Ryan is an expert on how plastics are formed and could be degraded, Mike is an expert on developing experimental tools to understand the interfaces between materials that arise in chemical upcycling of plastics, Kayla is an expert on computational modeling studies of similar interfaces and my group works on catalysts for depolymerization.”

Given the complexity of the problem, the researchers decided to combine their diverse yet complementary approaches to address problems in chemical upcycling. The Medlin group has been working on the conversion of biomass-derived polymers to renewable products for the last several years.

“Although plant-made polymers are certainly different from man-made plastics, some of the essential catalyst processes are quite similar,” Medlin said. “You’re trying to break apart a macromolecule into specific units that can be made into useful products. Extending our work to plastics upcycling made sense based on the group's general focus, and students are highly motivated to work on this critical environmental problem.”

The Hayward group will work on characterizing how the polymers in question are catalytically deconstructed — specifically how the polymers interact with the catalyst support surfaces and how the polymer chain lengths evolve as the reactions proceed.

“Enabling a shift to a more sustainable use of polymers, where the vast majority are recycled or converted to higher value products rather than being discarded after a single use is one of the most important challenges facing materials scientists today,” Hayward said. “We were very excited about the opportunity to join this team and to be able to work towards a very promising route toward deconstructing polymers into high value products.”

Toney said that his group will contribute research that focuses on the interfacial interactions between the catalyst, support and polymers as they react. This will require the development of new 'operando' experimental tools to observe the reactions in real-time.

“My research is largely motivated by helping to solve the sustainability challenges facing humanity by helping to develop new materials and processes,” Toney said. “Eliminating plastic waste is one such challenge perhaps most popularly seen by reports of ‘The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.’ This is my first research effort aimed at helping the team develop more effective methods to eliminate plastic waste.”

Medlin also credited Adjoint Professor Gregg Beckham as being a key part of the team. Beckham, who also works at NREL, will be contributing his expertise in plastics upcycling and conducting technoeconomic analyses of the processes the collaboration develops. Professor Andreas Heyden from the University of South Carolina will also conduct quantum mechanical simulations to understand the atomic-scale interactions between plastics and active catalysts, which will complement the Sprenger group’s efforts.

This grant was funded through the NSF Directorate for Engineering’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program.

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CU Boulder faculty help launch Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 15:49:49 +0000

CU Boulder faculty help launch Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/14/2021 - 09:49

Jonathan Raab

CU Boulder is a founding partner of a major National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center (STC): the Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand (IMOD). The center represents a research partnership spanning 11 universities led by the University of Washington.

The center’s research into optoelectronics — devices and materials that sense, transmit, display or otherwise utilize light — will be based on recent advances in quantum dots and halide perovskites.

Starting in October, NSF will invest $25 million across five years to fund IMOD’s collaborative research into the science underlying new optoelectronic technology and applications, including semiconductor materials, quantum optics, display screens, clean energy, sensing technology and the manufacturing processes that will build them at scale.

From left to right: Denise Bale, Seth Marder and Michael Toney

The center will be led by Alvin L. and Verla R. Kwiram Endowed Professor of Chemistry David Ginger of the University of Washington. Faculty from CU Boulder, including Senior Research Associate Denise Bale, Professor Seth Marder and Professor Michael Toney, are founding members.

Bale will serve as IMOD’s managing director, and will work closely with Ginger and Marder on management, staffing and center operations in support of research and integrative activities.

Bale said several of the center investigators have had previous collaborations.

“I was excited when David and Seth approached me about the opportunity to serve as the IMOD managing director,” she said. “The IMOD team is a dream to work with and I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute.”

Marder, who will serve as deputy director, was part of the team that submitted the initial proposal to the NSF. He will assist Ginger and Bale in strategic planning and operations.

“CU Boulder — and more generally the IMOD Science and Technology Center — has strength in materials synthesis and characterization specifically of high-quality optoelectronic materials that can be processed at low temperature,” Marder said. “This ability is important for both controlling the structure very precisely and potentially for lower cost manufacturing down the road.”

IMOD Partner Institutions

University of Washington (lead)
City College of New York
Columbia University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Lehigh University
Northwestern University
University of Chicago
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University of Maryland, Baltimore County
University of Maryland, College Park

Marder emphasized the broader impacts of NSF Science and Technology Centers.

“STCs have a very important education and workforce training component, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion mandates,” he said. “CU Boulder faculty and staff will play important roles in helping to craft and implement efforts to make educational materials not only available to center members, but to the broader community. We will be working with a variety of minority serving institutions to help broaden participation in STEM disciplines and will be working with various companies to help facilitate the transfer of technology to the industrial sector.”

Marder and Ginger approached Toney early on to get his help in developing and refining the center's goals in relation to synthesis and characterization. He said he would be responsible for detailed characterization of the processes involved in the molecularly precise synthesis as well as the resulting materials.

“We will be developing a modular chamber that can be used across multiple characterization methods, which is needed to understand and ultimately control the synthesis,” he added.

Associate Dean for Research Massimo Ruzzene said he was excited to see the research that came out of this new set of partnerships.

“This center speaks to the strength of CU Boulder’s interdisciplinary engineering research faculty, and specifically highlights our growing prominence in the field of materials science and engineering,” said Ruzzene. “It is a direct result of institutional investment in the exciting area of material science, and has the potential to make big waves in optoelectronic materials research, with far-reaching impacts across a wide range of industries and technologies.”

The center also further develops CU Boulder’s ongoing collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, which will serve as an external partner, particularly through collaboration with Director Joseph Berry of US-MAP Consortium at NREL. Berry is also a RASEI Fellow.

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