Colorado Section participates in Career Expo

ACerS Colorado Section participated in the Adams County Career Expo, alongside students from Keramos at Colorado School of Mines and the Ceramic and Glass Industry Foundation. This annual event, which took place this year on November 19, is a unique opportunity for 8^th grade students from the northeast-Denver area to learn all about possible career opportunities. Throughout the day, buses were shuttling students – over 6,000 total, according to the event organizers – to the expo where well over 100 employers and higher-education representatives were waiting to answer the students’ questions.

The Colorado Section’s table at the expo introduced the 8^th graders to the many applications of ceramic and glass materials. Many of the students were astounded at the ubiquity of these materials throughout daily life. Many of the students were very personable and asked insightful questions. This represented an excellent opportunity to explain some fundamental concepts of ceramic engineering and materials science in general –  and have a lot of fun while doing it!

To get the students excited about working with ceramics and materials, we performed a variety of demonstrations, such as:

• Using melted Jolly Rancher candies to draw “optical fibers” and demonstrate a glass transition
• Hammering the heads of Prince Rupert’s drops to demonstrate the effects of tempering and heat treatment, and then clipping their tails to make them explode! (In a plexiglass containment box, for safety)
• Discussing the concepts of brittleness and ductility and demonstrating it by chilling copper (pre-1982) and zinc (post-1982) pennies in liquid nitrogen and then hammering them – the copper remains ductile and does not shatter, but the zinc breaks into tiny pieces
• Demonstrating a variety of hand-blown glass objects made in the glass shop at Mines
• And of course, freezing a variety of fun items (marshmallows, rubber bands) in liquid nitrogen and showing them off

Over the years, many university students have said that they didn’t even know about ceramic engineering and materials science until they arrived at university – so this was an excellent opportunity to reach out to a younger audience. Hopefully, we were able to inspire some students to be the next generation of successful ceramic engineers and materials scientists!