Outreach
Outreach in the Public Schools
For five years, we have been exploring ways for students to use nanotechnology alongside scientists. Middle and high school students have used a special tool known as a nanoManipulator to explore properties of viruses. This year, February 4-8, 2002, we took the nanoManipulator to Orange High School and put on instructional workshops for 120 students.
The project involves an interdisciplinary team of educators, physicists, computer scientists, information scientists, psychologists, and educational psychologists. Students have been able to use the nanoManipulator across the Internet to see, feel and modify adenovirus particles. Results showed the project was successful in increasing the students’ interest in science; their understanding of various fields of science; and what scientists do. One thing the students have liked a great deal is the opportunity to meet and interact with faculty and students from the various disciplines (computer science, physics, chemistry, gene therapy) both in person and on-line.
An earlier nanoManipulator outreach project in the public schools investigated whether haptic feedback (involving the sense of touch) aids students’ understanding. For more information, go to http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/nano/ed/index/.htm
Outreach to the Public
Motivated by a desire to inspire students to stay in school and to enjoy math and science, in the summer of 2001, we brought 194 visitors to Sitterson Hall to see our special Virtual Reality summer demos. From June 17 to August 2, we hosted visitors from Meredith Math Camp, Duke University Summer Math Outreach Program, NC A&T Summer Program, Guilford Academic Allstars Camp, and Wake County Helping Hands Mentoring Program.
In November, 89 students from the Burke County Schools came to our department for a special set of presentations. Also in November, two groups from N.C. State University visited us: students from the Association for Computing Machinery and researchers from Industrial Engineering.
Other recent visitors include members of the Carrboro Fire Department, the North Carolina Zoo, Applied Research Associates, IEEE, Jacobs Engineering, and INC Contracting Co. Recent outreach to other departments within UNC-Chapel Hill include: the physics and astronomy staff, the School of Information and Library Science, University Administrators Association, the Arts and Science Foundation, and the College of Arts and Sciences.
In January of 2002, two C++ classes from the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics attended our Research demos. In February, 97 eighth-grade girls and their mentors from the Women and Math Mentor program of Durham and Wake counties visited our department to see Virtual Reality demos and to tour the department. The demand was so great that we opened up an extra demo day. Still the group had to have a lottery to decide who could come. (We are setting up additional demo days to accommodate this demand!) Also in February, two groups from RTP Company of Friends visited us for a special set of Research demos.
As in previous years, during 2001 our department has continued to receive a significant amount of coverage in the press. Research areas attracting the most interest have been Augmented Reality Surgery, the nanoManipulator, the Office of the Future, Digital Mammography--part of the work of the Medical Image Display and Analysis Group (MIDAG), and the dAb Haptic Painting System. A local company, 3rdTech Inc., which is developing and marketing products based on technology developed in our department and in other departments at UNC-Chapel Hill, has also been mentioned several times in the press.
Our recent and upcoming print appearances include articles in Computer Graphics World, Das Compaq Magazin, Discover, The Economist, IEEE Computer, Mechanical Engineering, MIT Technology Review, Popular Science, Scientific American, and Wired, among others, as well as in two publications produced at UNC-Chapel Hill: the Carolina Alumni Review and Endeavors, and in several on-line publications. Newspaper coverage has ranged from local dailies, such as the Chapel Hill News (Chapel Hill, N.C.), the Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.), and the News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), to national and international papers including The New York Times, The Guardian (England), The Star (Canada), and Suddeutsche Zeitung (Germany).
Recent broadcast coverage of our research has included an interview in February 2001 with faculty member Leandra Vicci about her new patent for an automatic emergency warning device and GPS position indicator, which aired on the local NBC affiliate’s evening news (WNCN-TV, Channel 17); and a nationally broadcast CBS Evening News segment in December 2001 on digital mammography featuring MIDAG member Dr. Etta Pisano of the Department of Radiology at UNC-Chapel Hill. Our nanoManipulator work appeared in Springboard, a PBS show airing in April 2001 in the San Francisco area.
Upcoming appearances include a three-part BBC Television series, The Virtual World (broadcast in the United Kingdom in March and April 2002), which will feature several of our research projects, including Augmented Reality Surgery, Effective Virtual Environments, nanoManipulator, and the Office of the Future; and a documentary about nanomedicine being produced for the Discovery health channel, which will include footage of nanoManipulator work.
For a complete list of
press coverage, see:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/Events/News/Media.html
Page maintained by: pubs@cs.unc.edu
Server Manager:
webmaster@cs.unc.edu
Content Manager: rsac@cs.unc.edu
Last Content Review: February 26, 2002