Graduate students who participate in MRSEC research also engage in a variety of professional development, outreach, education, and community building activities in order to develop and improve their communication, leadership, presentation, networking and demonstration skills. All MRSEC funded grads select to participate on one of the following teams each year:
OUTREACH TEAMS FOR FALL 2025 - SUMMER 2026
K-12 Outreach & Education Team
Mission: to engage, inspire, and educate youth audiences, parents, and teachers about materials science through active involvement by researchers in public events and STEM programs hosted by outreach partners while also building important and transferrable communication, presentation, facilitation, demonstration, leadership, and professional soft skills.
To accomplish this, team members focus on utilizing, developing, and implementing hands-on interactive demonstrations and short activities. Currently, their efforts include:
- Utilizing, updating/improving, and promoting the Mission: Materials Science activities and platform to virtual (and eventually "live") audiences.
- Partnering with Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania to bring materials science focused outreach programs to K-8 students.
- Coordinating the Arts Festival Kids Day science event on Old Main Lawn (during the annual Central PA Festival of the Arts event each July).
- Developing new activity ideas and learning how to test and adapt them for different ages and venue situations.
- Presenting activities at many additional local public outreach events (e.g. Exploration U, Grange Fair), STEM programs on campus (e.g., Science U summer camps, Envision) and classrooms with teachers (e.g. Milton Hershey School, local RET educator partners) to gain experience, get inspired by kid's curiosity, and build those important transferrable skills.
Lab Leaders Team
Mission: Reimagined team dedicated to educating members on lab start up and development.
