CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

To celebrate the International Year of Crystallography 2014, the Argentinian Crystallography Association (AACr) [1] launched theCrystal Growing Competition. It is an annual contest, which has been held uninterruptedly since 2014. This activity isaccompanied with courses in different cities of Argentina. In particular in our city, San Carlos de Bariloche, in the ArgentineanPatagonia, the courses are organized by the Instituto Balseiro (IB) and the Centro Atómico Bariloche (CAB). We have organizedcourses regarding the dissemination of crystallographic science in all educational levels. The course is aimed to introducecrystallography and give guidelines on crystal growth techniques to elementary and high schools teachers. With the learnedtopics and the pedagogical material given in the course the teachers can elaborate laboratory projects that includecrystallography principles according to their own students? level and to encourage the participation in the national andinternational crystal growing competition.Succinctly, the topics covered by our course are: a) Introduction to crystallography, b) Atomic structure, chemical bonds, c)Types of crystalline solids: metallic, ionic and covalent, d) Crystalline systems, Bravais lattices, e) Introduction to structuredetermination using X-ray diffraction and f) Crystal growing in the school, with practices in laboratory. In the experimentalpractices the teachers learn about solubility, growth of crystal seeds, and formation of single crystal and polycrystalline samplesand finally, they grow their own crystals.More than a hundred of teachers from Bariloche and the influence zone (Province of Río Negro and Neuquén) have attended theclasses and laboratory practices since 2014. This participation was reflected in an increment of hands-on crystal growthactivities in the schools and the participation of the students in growing competitions.Finally, the IB and CAB organize every year ?Crystal Growth? workshops destined to elementary and high schools students. Inthese workshops students learn about crystal growth with practical demonstrations. Workshops are given by CAB researchersand by the teachers who participated in previous courses as part of their final evaluation and as an additional training inlaboratory with students. Furthermore, special outreach printed pieces are designed and delivered to students and teachers.In addition at the course and workshop, activities on popularization on crystal growth are made in the ?Muestra CAB-IB?, anannual fair organized with the aim of showing the work performed in the CAB and IB to the general public [2]. Thereexperiments, interactive shows and professional lectures are offered for a week by researchers CAB and IB. It is open to publicand targeted in particular to students from 5th at primary school to non-university tertiary.

enviar mensaje