(360g) Teaching Nanobiotechnology

Nanobiotechnology is a subject of great interest for engineering students and is expected to be one of the technology growth areas in the next decade. It is a multidisciplinary subject that straddles basic science, materials and chemical engineering principles. Teaching such a course is challenging because students in the class come from a wide range of disciplines and many of the important issues are considered to be specialty topics not generally taught in lower level courses in typical science and engineering programs. To teach these topics at a level which builds real expertise requires assumption of background knowledge not uniformly held by students in the class. Our recent experience teaching such a course, strategies for organization and presentation of multidiscipinary topics, and results of student evaluation are discussed. This multidisciplinary course is an engineering elective at the University of Utah, and is a recommended course for students in the Professional Masters and Nanotechnology Training programs at the University of Utah.