September 18, 2015

When Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti visited I-STEM on Wednesday, September 16th, she met with a number of like-minded Illinois folk regarding increasing the number of underrepresented students in STEM. During the dialogue, administrators, educators, project directors, and students alike shared their passion for STEM education and outreach, conveying this message to the Lt. Governor: the STEM pipeline at Illinois is alive and well.
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December 12, 2013

At the conclusion of a Nanotechnology Teacher Institute in the summer of 2010, Joe Muskin, then Education Outreach Coordinator for the Nano-CEMMS Center, encouraged participants to consider the Center—including its facilities, nanoscience supplies for classroom activities, and expertise—to be a resource for them. Kim Wright, a science teacher at Danville Lutheran School, took him at his word. So on December 12, 2013, to reward six 5–8th grade students for doing well on their compound microscope unit, Wright brought them to the Illinois campus to experience a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and to learn how to use 3D printers.
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November 6, 2012

The Nano-CEMMS education program seems to have a pattern of offering top-notch educators stimulating science programs as bait, getting them hooked, then reeling them in. For example, the story of how Carrie Kouadio, an integral part of the Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems (Nano-CEMMS) education team ended up there is similar to those of several other members of the team: She was a science teacher who came to Nano-CEMMS to participate in teacher development to improve her skills and liked it so much that she stayed.
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November 1, 2012

On October 29–30, 2012, several representatives from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign participated in the second annual French-American Science Festival held at Northwestern University in Chicago. This year's two-day festival drew upon French and U.S. expertise to address topics on the theme "Sustainable Development." The Festival was funded by the French Consulate in Chicago and organized by Adèle Martial of the French Consulate's Office for Science and Technology.
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July 9, 2012

If you make the rounds of campus outreach very often, you will soon discover that one of the constants in the STEM-education-outreach universe is Joe Muskin…and company. Part of the education arm of Nano-CEMMS (the Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems), Joe and his crack team, educator Carrie Kouadin, graduate student Matt Alonso, and Joe's girl Friday, Athena Lin...
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