2013/03/25 by Hassan Raza, Raza, Hassan, Tehseen Z. Raza +1
Engineering · #Biomedical and Engineering Education #Experimental Learning in Engineering #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Nanotechnology research and applications #Physics Education (physics.ed-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1303.6910
openalex publication_date 2013/03/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report a first year seminar course on nanoengineering, which provides a\nunique opportunity to get exposed to the bottom-up approach and novel\nnanotechnology applications in an informal small class setting early in the\nundergraduate engineering education. Our objective is not only to introduce the\nfundamentals and applications of nanoengineering but also the issues related to\nethics, environmental and societal impact of nanotechnology used in\nengineering. To make the course more interactive, laboratory tours for\nmicrofabrication facility, microscopy facility, and nanoscale laboratory at the\nUniversity of Iowa are included, which inculcate the practical feel of the\ntechnology. The course also involves active student participation through\nweekly student presentations, highlighting topics of interest to this field,\nwith the incentive of "nano is everywhere" Final term papers submitted by the\nstudents involve a rigorous technology analysis through various perspectives.\nFurthermore, a student based peer review process is developed which helps them\nto improve technical writing skills, as well as address the ethical issues of\nacademic honesty while reviewing and getting introduced to a new aspect of the\narea presented by their colleagues. Based on the chosen paper topics and\nstudent ratings, the student seemed motivated to learn about the novel area\nintroduced to them through theoretical, computational and experimental aspects\nof the bottom-up approach.\n