Overview of Teacher Camp Workshop activities.
The first two days were dedicated to the wet chemical purification and synthesis of precursor compounds necessary for eventual perovskite synthesis. These activities were designed to teach crystallization, solubility, reaction principles, and stoichiometry. The third day introduced electrochemical concepts. A key aspect of this curriculum was design of a novel, simple electrodeposition platform that had three primary educational benefits: (1) it could be used to produce PbO2 films electrochemically using the same chemistry found in lead acid batteries, (2) it allows electrochemical cell set up by relatively unskilled hands, and (3) it affords multiple devices be prepared and tested on a single chip. The fourth and fifth days were devoted to the facile synthesis of the base perovskite layer and device fabrication. These solar cells were then evaluated in terms of concepts discussed throughout the week. The end of the fifth day also included time for participants to discuss how to tailor this curriculum to different school settings.
This program teaches high school teachers how to perform the same materials research activities currently ongoing in labs across the globe in a way that introduces and reinforces fundamentals in materials science and chemistry. The curriculum demonstrated here has the capacity to greatly increase the reach of the CMI for exposing STEM topics to beginning students.
This educational was based on semiconductor materials and reinforced the ideas of inexpensive, regenerative materials. These points are core concepts underpinning both IRGs.
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