FLATE Award Winner Attends AVS Science Educators Workshop at International Symposium

Ed Fry, 2022 FLATE Post-Secondary Educator of the Year Awardee, attended the AVS Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processes annual Science Educators Workshop (SEW) during the Society’s Annual International Symposium and Exhibition held this year November 6-8 in Pittsburg, PA. The 2-day SEW is produced by the Education and Outreach Committee to support the awareness and importance of vacuum technology in today’s world. Ed was supported by the International Society and the Florida Chapter of the AVS, which covered his travel to Pittsburg and a $1200 vacuum equipment voucher for Ed’s home high school, Nature Coast Technical High School in Brooksville, Florida.

The workshop, first developed in the early 1990’s, is a high impact, intense experience for the teachers attending. The workshop starts with pump operation basics and simple demonstrations, current industry applications, but evolves to the interplay of experimental data, theory, and models. Teachers get hands on experience with these ideas using vacuum pumps and equipment that they will receive from the society. The workshop includes a guided tour of the exhibition hall with visits to vendors of pumps, vacuum components, and process systems and a tour to a local company that uses vacuum equipment. This year’s tour was at an international company, the Kurt J. Lesker Company, with its headquarters and major manufacturing of chambers, components, as well as process equipment facilities in the greater Pittsburg area. The final session of the workshop might be the most important- pump assembly and maintenance, was specifically for the pumps the teachers will be receiving.

In addition to the 2-day workshop itself, the teachers are registered for the full symposium and can attend the evening sessions (welcome mixer, poster sessions, and other sessions) if they have time. Many teachers take the opportunity to visit the poster sessions, talk to graduate students, and attend the Symposium mixer. At the end of the workshop, the Society President distributes the equipment vouchers, certificates of attendance and CEU (Continuing Education Units) for those requesting them.

Ed teaches a CTE (Career and Technical Education) Clinic where he sees great opportunity to integrate some of what he learned at the 2022 AVS SEW. He also thought the workshop provided a great overview of vacuum technology applications across many technologies. This highly rated educator workshop will be held November 5-7 in Portland, Oregon during the next AVS Symposium and Exhibit. Teachers from across the country can apply on the AVS SEW workshop webpages (https://avs.org/education/science-educators-workshop/) where the workbook, advanced experiments, photos, videos and other resources are also posted and downloadable for free. All teachers accepted for these workshops are 100% supported for attendance, travel, and the equipment vouchers. Florida teachers (and others) are also encouraged to nominate secondary and post-secondary teachers and industry or community partners for FLATE’s 2023 Manufacturing Education Awards on FLATE’s website.