UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
A short questionnaire was sent to 16 teachers from six schools in South Wales. Five replies were received covering Chemistry, Physics, Design and Technology and Engineering. Copies of these replies can be found in the pack.
Most of the materials were requested by at least one group. Table 1 indicates the requests by subject.
The suggestion made by the UK Centre that there should be a modular pack that can be added to seems to be the best idea. From discussions with teachers, including those that have not responded in writing to this questionnaire, I think that the following materials are likely to be of most use to the specified subjects:
Central to the teaching of materials chemistry across all the examining boards are the three main material classes: metals, polymers and ceramics. A core pack of each of the three classes would be useful including all the metals and polymers listed. Although the emphasis for the project is on materials samples I recommend that a short (A5) appraisal of key properties, uses and production methods is included. In addition I think that a pack of ores, as mentioned by one teacher would be a good addition. There is already a good pack available from Corus Education that covers several iron ores but a pack covering iron, aluminium and copper would be useful for particularly at GCSE and above. Perhaps they could be persuaded to combine their resources with some other – provided their name is still associated with the pack.
In addition, the chemistry teachers were interested in fibre reinforced composites but I would suggest that these are an optional extra as there are teachers from all subjects that are interested and a ‘composites’ pack would be a good add-on for most subjects.
One teacher 'Chem 2' was also interested in other advanced materials such as smart materials and optical fibres. This teacher was following the Nuffield AS level Chemistry and with the additional materials project is likely to want more exotic materials than other chemistry teachers.
In summary, I think that a core chemistry pack should contain metals, polymers and ceramics as listed above. An optional extra composites pack would be useful and individual options on other exotic materials such as optical fibres would also be useful for teachers following some syllabi – particularly Nuffield Chemistry AS.
The physics teacher that responded was following the OCR Advancing Physics course and as such is probably not typical of the materials required by Physics teachers. WJEC physics at both GCSE and AS level has very little materials content but what it does have is linked to thermal expansion (bimetallic strips), stress-strain graphs and the properties associated with tensile tests. A simple pack with examples of different classes of materials is likely to be most useful. As before some additional info along with the samples would probably be good here – for example, microstructure information and / or pictures.
The Edexcel AS level has a materials option which covers mechanical
properties in some detail. For this examining board I think that a pack
similar to the chemistry pack suggested above (minus the ore samples)
would be a good starting point. In addition this syllabus gives some
attention to composites so, as before, a composites add-on pack would
be useful.
For the OCR Advancing Physics a basic set of materials (such as those
in the core metals / polymers / ceramics pack) would probably be necessary
but most of the exotic materials (smart material / optical fibres / Teflon)
would also be desirable. These latter materials should probably be individual
add-ons. I also think that the more exotic materials should be provided
in the form of something usable / demonstrable as opposed to just visual
inspection samples. (see next section for more on sample types).
Overall for Physics there is a large variation in the likely requirements depending on a teacher’s examining board. For WJEC a special ‘basic’ pack is likely to be of most use. For the other boards a core pack, similar to that for Chemistry plus a wider selection of more exotic materials is likely to be most desirable.
Two D&T courses were followed by the target schools – WJEC and Edexcel. The results in the table are from a teacher following WJEC GCSE and AS. The emphasis in both syllabi is on material properties and a wide range of examples are given, which is reflected in the number of materials ticked in the table above. A few less metals have been selected in this category compared with the Chemistry and Physics teachers but similar core packs are likely to be useful with a number of exotic materials also being selected as options. It is possible that an ‘exotic materials’ pack would be of use (also possibly to Advancing Physics and Nuffield Chemistry) which covers a few of the materials such as optical fibres and smart materials. This would have to be in addition to the individual options for these more expensive materials so that teacher on more limited budgets could pick and choose.
Only one teacher is following the Advanced Vocational A-level in Engineering. The requirements of this course are more about the main material classes and their properties and less unusual materials such as smart materials and superconductors are necessary. The main groups are metals, polymers, ceramics and composites. As for the other subjects, a core pack covering these material classes would be most suitable.
All the teachers gave some examples of case studies or projects that involve materials. These ranged from specific details, such as 'properties and uses of ceramics and plastics' in one chemistry course to more general comments such as, 'each student has to do a presentation on the use / application of a particular material'. This question was included in the questionnaire to see if there were any case studies or practicals carried out that were common across subjects / schools which we could produce a pack to support. I think that the case studies, whilst similar in nature due to the overlap in syllabi content, do not need to be individually provided for. Teachers seem to develop them around the resources that are available and as such they are likely to be similar if we are providing a standard set of samples for them to use.
There are some case study packs available, which may be worth linking to. I have provided a copy of the case studies that are part of Hugh Shercliffe's Materials Selection and Processing pack along with the supporting CDROM of property maps. I think that linking some practical samples with these case studies could prove very useful for teachers. The case studies get pupils to investigate the compromise between different material properties and the maps provide a means of comparing different materials for a combination of properties. Samples could be linked to the case studies by providing a selection of materials that are possible solutions to the application and can be tested for properties that are relevant to the product.
Table 2 summarises the responses of the teachers to the question of the nature of samples that could be provided. All the teachers thought that samples for inspection were useful and this is also the response that I had from all schools during the previous teaching development project. There was a slight split in the type of testing samples that were preferred with one teacher each preferring hand testing or machine testing whilst the other three teachers ticked both boxes. In the first project many teachers expressed concern that they did not have the equipment to carry out machine testing and therefore hand tests were easier to organise on a class basis. The schools that visited the Materials department at Swansea all found the materials testing demonstrations very useful. This suggests that schools would choose the machine testing option if it were available to them. The previous project produced a simple pack of materials, which included tested and untested polymer and metal tensile samples. Data from each test and videos of the tests taking place were also provided which enabled the schools to carry out a type of virtual testing for each of the materials in the pack. This was considered a very useful resource which could be expanded and used as a stand alone materials testing pack. However, a more desirable result would seem to be a means of carrying out mechanical testing within the classroom.
If samples are to be for inspection alone there was some disagreement between teachers as to the most useful format. Some thought that application type samples would be best whilst others preferred simple comparable samples, such as the tensile samples that were provided.
This question was included to get a feel for the budgets that are available to schools and the number of samples that would be required to adequately provide resources for a whole class.
In terms of numbers of samples there is unsurprisingly a wide variation in the requirements of the different schools and subjects. For example, There are 10 pupils studying Engineering in one school whereas there are up to 250 studying Chemistry in another school. Clearly group work could mean that the numbers of samples could be reduced and the nature of the samples (i.e. hand test / machine test / inspection) would also influence numbers. In the questionnaire I asked for the total number of pupils as this would be the maximum required.
Breaking the requirements down into material types I think the following levels would be suitable:
Inspection For more expensive materials such as superconductors a single demonstration sample would be adequate but for less expensive materials such as ores / low cost polymers I suggest 10 per pack. This would mean that groups of 3 in an average sized class could have a sample each.
Hand testing For this sort of testing it would seem preferable that pupils have a sample each to test. If all pupils were to get a sample this could mean as many as 50 for AS level. For group work the numbers could, as above, be reduced by about a third to 17. Packs of 10 samples would probably be adequate with teachers at larger schools needing more packs.
Machine testing These samples are likely to be more expensive due to the specialist machining required and so group work is likely to be the only feasible option. As for the inspection samples, I suggest ten samples of each material per pack.
It should be noted that class sizes are usually 25-30 pupils but in large schools there could be more than one class per year and the requirements will obviously be higher.
It should be emphasised that the figures given above are for an individual department. It is possible that where a set of inspection samples or a testing machine were to be of use to more than one department three times the budget stated would be available, that is £75 to £100 for inspection samples and up to £150 for a test machine.
A few potential sources of material samples have been found. Details of the company and the types of products they can supply are given below.
