2012 RET Profile: Mark Hall
Tennessee teacher goes nano at the MagLab
By Kathleen Laufenberg
Mark Hall, an eighth-grade science teacher at Northeast Middle School in Clarksville, Tenn., plans to introduce his students to some nano-ideas this school year, thanks to the MagLab.
Teacher Mark Hall explains his project on nanomaterials to a visitor during his poster presentation at the Magnet Lab in July.
Hall was one of 11 teachers selected for the lab’s summer internship program, Research Experiences for Teachers (RET), and he spent his time learning about all things microscopic.
“I love teaching and I’m totally thrilled to have had this experience and to be able to come back and share some of it with my students,” said the 41-year-old Hall, who has been teaching science for seven years. “When I teach electromagnetism this year, I’m going to do a few things differently after spending the summer at the lab.”
Instead of having his students present their findings by writing a paper, for example, he’s going to have them create large posters, Hall said. Scientists at the lab present their method, data and findings via posters, which line many of the lab’s hallways. Hall created and presented such a poster on his lab project at the end of his internship.
“I hadn’t ever really seen that before,” Hall said of the poster presentations. “It’s amazing: It’s clear, it’s concise. I think my students will enjoy doing that more than writing a 5-, 10- or 20-page report. And it will focus their attention. They’ll have to distill what they’ve learned down to what’s most important.”
Hall and the other teachers accepted into the lab’s prestigious RET program work with scientists doing pioneering research in physics, chemistry, biological sciences, geochemistry, materials science, magnet science and engineering. The teachers learn how to use state-of-the-art technology to explore materials and phenomena at extreme magnetic fields, pressures and temperatures. Best of all, they do it while working alongside some of the finest scientists, magnet designers and engineers in the world.
Hall worked with scientist Bob Goddard, a research specialist in magnet technology and engineering who specializes in peering into the nanoworld. In order to study superconducting wires — wires that transmit electricity with no resistance and no loss of power — Hall examined them using a highly sensitive scanning electron microscope (SEM). The SEM can enlarge an image up to 1.5 million times its actual size.
“We were actually seeing individual grains of metals,” Hall said. “To know that we have that kind of technology — wow! And getting to work with Bob Goddard was a real privilege.”
Goddard said he tries to make the teachers’ experience more than educational.
“What I hope they take away from their internships is the understanding that science is not only interesting, but it can be fun, too,” Goddard said.
That’s one of the reasons Goddard has three-dimensional pictures and anamorphic images (a deformed image that must be seen from a particular viewpoint to appear in its true shape) posted around his lab. The pictures are a fun challenge for visitors of all ages. He invites them to look closely at the images, then don 3-D glasses or view the anamorphic picture from a particular spot and notice how much the image changes. Working with a super powerful SEM presents similar challenges, Hall said.
“The irony of the whole thing is that the act of imaging your sample destroys your sample,” Hall noted. “Because of the power of that SEM, you have to learn how to examine your sample very quickly, before the image is destroyed.”
Hall and his lab partner, fellow interning teacher Faith Shiver of Georgia, used the SEM to measure nanograins of a superconducting material called niobium tin (Nb3Sn). To do that, they had to prepare niobium-tin samples.
Hall learned how to make a sample holder, or puck, to contain the teeny grains of niobium tin, then grind and polish the puck. After examining their samples, the teachers prepared and presented their summary poster to explain their project. At the end of July, they returned to their homes to share their new knowledge.
For more information about the MagLab’s RET program contact Jose Sanchez at sanchez@magnet.fsu.edu or (850) 645-0033.
Classroom Outreach
