Outreach

Our Approach to Educational and Outreach Activities

Our educational mission includes teaching K-12 students about how chemical engineering and catalysis impacts their daily lives, and inspiring them to pursue further education in STEM disciplines. At Purdue, we partner with organizations including the Women in Engineering Program (WIEP), the Duke Energy Academy, the Omega Chi Epsilon (OXE) Student Chapter, the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) CISTAR, the Purdue ChE Graduate Student Organization (GSO), and with other research groups to develop original content and deliver catalysis-related outreach programs.

Our outreach programs include short presentations on the fundamentals of catalysis, exciting demonstrations of chemistry and catalysis principles, hands-on experimental activities that demonstrate principles of catalysis, and tours of academic research laboratories in the Forney Hall of Chemical Engineering and the Birck Nanotechnology Center. At the Birck Nanotechnology Center, students are able to observe how a transmission electron microscope (TEM) can image individual atoms on the surface of a catalyst.

In the Fundamentals Laboratory of Forney Hall, we use a hands-on activity for students to measure catalytic rates of hydrogen peroxide decomposition, which demonstrates how reactant concentration affects reaction rates, a basic concept in catalysis and kinetics (Cybulskis et al., J. Chem. Ed., 93 (2016) 1406-1410). We also use a hands-on activity for students to assemble and test an ethanol fuel cell with solutions containing different types of fuel (methanol, ethanol), and fuel concentrations and temperatures. These experiments demonstrate concepts relevant to renewable energy technologies, and how reactant concentration and temperature affect the power output from the fuel cell, which are fundamental concepts in chemical kinetics and electrocatalysis.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are developing virtual outreach events in partnership with CISTAR to allow for students to perform catalysis-related demonstrations in real-time in their own homes to practice making and sharing scientific observations.

Pictures from each outreach event can be found below!

Purdue ChE Omega Chi Epsilon (OXE) ChemE Kids Day

We partner with Purdue ChE's Omega Chi Epsilon (OXE) Chapter to participate in ChemE Kids Day. This event involves around 150 students from 3rd-5th grades in the Lafayette, IN area interested in math and science and want to learn more about Chemical Engineering. We provide a brief presentation about how chemical engineering and catalysis affects our daily lives, and perform demonstrations using hydrogen fuel cells to discuss renewable energy applications of catalysis and using hydrogen peroxide decomposition to discuss medical applications of catalysis.

Purdue ChE GSO Murdock Elementary After-School Science Club

In collaboration with the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Organization, members of Gounder Research Group have expanded and led the after-school science club for third graders at Murdock Elementary School in Lafayette, Indiana since 2013. On Monday afternoons, almost every week of the school year, graduate students perform hands-on activities and experiments to explore topics such as weather, magnetism, acids and bases, and sound. Students are able to see first-hand how scientific topics shape the world around us and receive mentorship from role model graduate students who have succeeded in STEM careers.

NSF CISTAR Virtual Outreach Activities

We partner with CISTAR to develop virtual outreach events for middle school students unable to participate in science activities in the classroom because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each outreach event involved 30-60 students across a series of three one-hour sessions held via a teleconferencing platform. These virtual sessions provided an opportunity for middle school students at schools across the United States to engage with engineering graduate students and learn about the important role of catalysts in light hydrocarbon upgrading. Students had the opportunity to perform a guided, hands-on, catalysis-related demonstration in real-time in their own homes and to practice making and sharing scientific observations. We are working to expand this program in the fall, even with the return of in-person classroom activities, at the behest of middle school educators who partner with CISTAR. These virtual events provide us the opportunity to broaden our impact to engage middle school students and to support middle-school educators across the United States.

NSF CISTAR Science Classroom Curriculum Development

In-service high school and middle school science, math and engineering teachers are recruited to participate in a six-week summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET) with CISTAR. The teachers are given the opportunity to engage in hands-on projects with Purdue researchers and to create content for their classrooms. In summer 2019, Arunima Saxena mentored Marie Mikels, who is a middle school teacher at Tecumseh Junior High School, to created a lesson plan themed on “CISTAR Hydrocarbon Oligomerization”. In January 2020, Marie implemented the lesson in her 7th grade classroom. The lesson will soon be shared broadly to other science teachers via the CISTAR website. A modified version is being used for an outreach activity at all five CISTAR universities.

Purdue ChE GSO Solar Rollers Day

Our graduate students partner with the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Organization (GSO) to provide educational workshops and events for local schools. One such event is the annual Solar Rollers Day. Local 7th and 8th graders from an honors middle school science program come to campus for a day-long event led by ChE graduate students. Students work in teams, with a graduate mentor, and are given instructions on how to design and build a small solar powered car. Students learn about engineering principles as well as how solar energy can power motors. Graduate students provide information on Purdue University and careers as chemical engineers to the students to inspire the next generation of STEM researchers.

Purdue Women in Engineering: Innovation-to-Reality (I2R) Program

We partner with the Purdue Women in Engineering as part of their Innovation 2 Reality (I2R) event, which provides after-school engineering activities for 30-40 local 6th-8th grade students. The theme for the spring 2015 I2R session was Engineering the Frontiers of Medicine. Our two hour long catalysis-related program included a presentation and demonstrations. The students learn about how catalysis is vital to everyday life and medical applications, such as the use of noble metals in the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients, exemplified by the work of one of Purdue Chemistry's own Nobel Laureates, Professor Ei-ichi Negishi. The theme for the fall 2015 I2R session was Energized Engineering for the Environment. In the Fundamentals Laboratory, the students measure hydrogen peroxide decomposition rates with a liquid sodium iodide catalyst, and learn how platinum catalysts are used to decompose hydrogen peroxide in contact lens cleaning solutions and how catalase enzymes (biological catalysts) work to breakdown harmful metabolic byproducts (H2O2) in living organisms. The students also learn about how catalysis can be used to protect the environment from pollutants emitted from diesel engines, with the aid of an actual catalytic converter with cutout displays provided by Johnson-Matthey.

Purdue Women in Engineering: For Your Imagination (FYI) Program

We partner with the Purdue Women In Engineering For Your Imagination (FYI) event, which is a day-long event offered to around 120 junior high school students and their parents, designed to increase interest in engineering among rising 7th-9th grade girls. In smaller groups throughout the day, students observe presentations and demonstrations describing the basics of catalysis, and perform hands-on experiments with ethanol and hydrogen fuel cells and with measuring hydrogen peroxide decomposition rates in the Fundamentals Laboratory.

NSF CISTAR High School STEM Recruiting

Connections with high school and middle school teachers from our partnership with the CISTAR Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program allow us to share our work and interact with high school students across the country who are considering majors in STEM. In November 2019, students from Cristo Rey High School in Columbus, Ohio visited campus for tours, class visits and information sessions. Cristo Rey targets under-served youth in central Ohio, more than 90% of the students are underrepresented minorities. The highlight of their two days was a visit to the School of Chemical Engineering to learn more about CISTAR. The students were accompanied by their teacher, Kyle Scheumaker, who spent summer 2019 with CISTAR as a participant in the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. Elizabeth Bickel and Arunima Saxena led an information session and tour of the Gounder research labs. The students had the opportunity to ask Elizabeth and Arunima about careers in STEM and research and development. Two of the Cristo Rey students have been admitted to Purdue Engineering for Fall 2020.

Duke Energy Academy at Purdue

We partner with professors Jeff Greeley (ChE) and Volkan Ortalan (MSE), together with graduate student volunteers, to develop a catalysis research project for groups of around 20 high school students and teachers as part of the Duke Energy Academy at Purdue. The group learns about how supercomputers allow studying the atomic-level behavior of catalysts, and use a transmission electron microscope (TEM) at the Birck Nanotechnology Center to image individual atoms on a catalyst surface. The students and teachers also perform the ethanol fuel cell activity as part of our renewable energy module, and learn how fuel concentration, energy density and temperature affect the power output from the fuel cell.

We also deliver an hour-long lecture and hands-on activity with the entire Duke Energy Academy group of around 40 high school students and 40 high school teachers. The group learns about how to design catalyst surfaces to promote reactions, using hydrogen peroxide synthesis from hydrogen and oxygen as an example of “green” chemistry. Students and teachers use ball-and-stick models of different atoms and surface facets of a platinum catalyst to observe how specific locations (binding sites) on the catalyst surface help perform a reaction, and learn how theory can guide the discovery of new catalytic materials.