What Has Been Achieved: The Outreach Team structure of the Center provides an effective way to organize and implement the engagement of graduate student and postdoc researchers to reach a variety of audiences, and this structure was utilized even more extensively than in previous reporting periods by expanding K-12 audience reach into local communities and including online educational content about materials science that can be accessed by anyone on the internet.
Importance of the Achievement: While contributing to K-12 Outreach events and programs is always a consistent activity throughout the entire calendar year, the shift in travel focus to community locations, the addition of K-12 efforts by the Lab Leaders Team as well, and the completion of the final iteration of educational content for the website represent exceptional efforts from the norm. Since researchers are the best messengers to share and convey information about STEM and its applications to K-12 audiences, while the preparation, training, and experience of doing so builds their own professional skill levels, these shifts provided an even broader set of unique opportunities to advance the Center’s K-12 outreach goals.
How is the achievement related to the IRG, and how does it help it achieve its goals? Engagement in K-12 and public outreach activities builds the personal and professional networks of all Center members, across the IRGs and university materials science community, providing opportunities to organically explore, create, and strengthen connections and communication between researchers that would not otherwise happen.
Where the findings are published: The Mission: Materials Science website includes all of the new content completed in 2025: https://www.missionmaterialsscience.com