UNM Partners with Albuquerque Public Schools So Students Can Learn Microsystems Technology

Matt Pleil con­duct­ing a demon­stra­tion in the
Man­u­fac­tur­ing Train­ing & Tech­nol­ogy Center.

Albu­querque Pub­lic Schools will soon receive more than $200,000 through a Nation Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Advanced Tech­no­log­i­cal Edu­ca­tion grant recently awarded to UNM’s South­west Cen­ter for Microsys­tems Edu­ca­tion at the UNM School of Engineering. Seventy APS teach­ers will attend pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment enabling them to teach high school stu­dents fun­da­men­tals of Mico­Electro­Mechan­i­cal­Sys­tems (MEMS) tech­nol­ogy and the sci­ence that is part of it.

The hands-on edu­ca­tional mate­ri­als already devel­oped will be adapted for a wide range of STEM classes includ­ing basic sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, physics, chem­istry and biol­ogy classes, and UNM is work­ing with APS to see that it is avail­able in every pub­lic high school in their system.

“When stu­dents visit the clean room at UNM’s Man­u­fac­tur­ing Train­ing and Tech­nol­ogy Cen­ter, I tell them they could make as much as their high school teacher if they acquire a two-year asso­ciates degree in Advanced Sys­tems Tech­nol­ogy at CNM, and later they can con­tinue at UNM to become engi­neers and make even more,” says Matt Pleil, research asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and part-time fac­ulty at CNM.  “That gets their atten­tion since many stu­dents either don’t have the desire to get a four year degree or they want to earn money sooner and have a com­pany pick up some of the edu­ca­tional costs later.”

The SCME team has worked with uni­ver­si­ties, com­mu­nity col­leges and high schools since 2004 to help them edu­cate stu­dents for a career in microsys­tems man­u­fac­tur­ing.  Stu­dents who receive this edu­ca­tion have a range of career oppor­tu­ni­ties.  Some decide to com­plete a two year pro­gram and move directly into research or man­u­fac­tur­ing.  Oth­ers opt for an engi­neer­ing degree at a university.

APS Super­in­ten­dent Win­ston Brooks says, “Any expe­ri­ence that empow­ers our teach­ers to bring the real world into the class­room directly to our stu­dents is val­ued.  Expo­sure is every­thing. Stu­dents who may  never even  have con­sid­ered a career in the science/technology fields are often sur­prised to dis­cover their strengths  in these areas once exposed. This is a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity for our teach­ers and students.”

The APS por­tion of the grant is part of a $3.36 mil­lion grant that will help cre­ate ways to pro­duce a steady pipeline of poten­tial employ­ees for the high tech, microsys­tems indus­try nation­wide.  The stu­dents will learn about the tech­ni­cian and engi­neer­ing career path­ways while real­iz­ing the impor­tance of learn­ing sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing and math­e­mat­i­cal prin­ci­ples as they apply them to hands-on activ­i­ties in the classroom.

MEMS devices are every­where. A MEMS device tells your smart phone which way is up, whether you are hold­ing it ver­ti­cally or hor­i­zon­tally and auto­mat­i­cally adjusts the pic­ture.  MEMS devices are inside your smart phone, tablet and gam­ing con­trols.  There are 50 to 100 MEMS devices in your car, mea­sur­ing every­thing from tire pres­sure and flu­ids to mak­ing sure your airbag works when it is needed.

SCME and UNM are work­ing with North Dakota State Col­lege of Sci­ence, the Uni­ver­sity of South Florida, ASK Acad­emy in Albu­querque, Ivy Tech in Indi­ana – Ft. Wayne Cam­pus and Cen­tral New Mex­ico Com­mu­nity Col­lege as part of this grant.  They also con­tinue their part­ner­ships with microsys­tems indus­tries and col­leges across the nation as well as reach­ing out to other col­leges located near high-tech regions.  SCME has a wide range of classroom-ready hands-on teach­ing kits, read­ing mate­ri­als and stream­ing lec­tures, webi­nars and ani­ma­tions that school dis­tricts can down­load or pur­chase at the South­west Cen­ter for Microsys­tems Edu­ca­tion web­site.  APS teach­ers may begin using these mate­ri­als as early as fall 2013.

A num­ber of local com­pa­nies hire stu­dents edu­cated in MEMS and advanced sys­tems tech­nolo­gies includ­ing Emcore, HT Micro, Thun­der Sci­en­tific, CVI, 3D Glass, Life Bio­sciences, Intel and San­dia National Laboratories.

Media con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu