While it has become exceedingly difficult to find water in Southern California due to extreme drought conditions, there has been an excess of RAIN at Pasadena City College (PCC). Using our Phenom ProX Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) with Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) from Nanoscience Instruments, we have quenched Pasadena’s thirst for advanced technological education. Being part of the Remotely Accessible Instruments in Nanotechnology (RAIN) community has been a tremendous asset for our students’ success.
The Natural Sciences Division at PCC strives to provide research experiences for students that utilize advanced technological equipment. One of our major goals with broader impact is to increase success among our underrepresented minority student population. Through RAIN, students engaged in research and our science courses at PCC have accessed our SEM, AFM, and qNANO for remote experiments. Shown in the image above, Vince Aguierre is teaching PCC students how to operate the SEM as they analyze a paint sample.
It RAINs daily in our Early Career Undergraduate Research Program (eCURe) at PCC. Examples of how we use RAIN in our research includes characterization of synthesized nanoparticles, analysis of materials such as paints, and nanoart. In the image shown to the right, eCURe student Felix Monge used his graphic design background to color an SEM image of fern sporangia to create nanoart. Eventually, we plan to hold a competition in which students can color SEM images and submit works of nanoart to be displayed in the Science Village at PCC.
RAIN has also allowed us to expand beyond the community college, as we are able to go out into the community and engage middle school and high school students with advanced nanotechnology. Shown below is an example of an outreach activity implemented by PCC eCURe students at APEX Academy in Hollywood, CA, in which they taught students how to make paints and then remotely analyzed the paint properties via SEM.
To make nanotechnology education even more widespread, PCC held a workshop for middle school and high school teachers in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) focused on problem-based learning methodologies that utilize our SEM in several lab experiments. After learning how to access and use the nanotechnology equipment in these labs, PUSD teachers brought the labs back to their classrooms and used the RAIN network throughout the year to familiarize K-12 with current technological capabilities. The RAIN network is a powerful tool that teachers can use in their classrooms, and we encourage educators at all levels to integrate these resources into their course curriculum.
