Granta Design announced details of next year's Materials Education Symposia at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company is also demonstrating the latest CES EduPack resources developed specifically to support and help enhance materials related teaching across courses on engineering, design, sustainability, and science: these are now used at over 800 universities and colleges worldwide.
The 2012 Materials Education Symposia will follow on from this year's successful events, coordinated by Granta and supported by ASM International, the European Engineering Education Society (SEFI), the Federation of European Materials Societies (FEMS), the Materials Division of ASEE, and The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS). Over 150 educators from across the world took part in two separate events, each with two days of presentations and discussions focused on materials education. Following positive feedback from participants, the events will run again in 2012.
The 3rd North American Symposium will be held at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, on March 29-30. In Europe, the 4th International Materials Education Symposium will be held at Cambridge University, UK, on April 12-13. The Academic Advisory Committee have just issued a Call for Speakers, inviting presentations on 'innovation and change', 'crossing disciplines--education for interface sciences', 'emerging challenges and opportunities in materials', and 'materials, government and industry'. Abstracts received before September 15 will be reviewed by the committee for inclusion as either talks or posters.
At this week's ASEE meeting, Granta are also demonstrating their latest educational teaching resources and software--CES EduPack 2011. A growing number of universities are now using these resources within a materials-spine, design-spine, or sustainability-spine that runs throughout their engineering curriculum. The core software is supported by a newly updated Teaching Resources Website, and offers innovative software and extended information resources to support all years of undergraduate study and postgraduate teaching and research. It includes extensive information and property data on materials and processes, interactive graphing and selection software, lectures, teaching notes, and a novel tool to help introduce sustainability issues and assess environmental impact.