Laboratory

 

Ethical Considerations for Nanomaterials Research

The Ethics Module will teach you about ethical and societal considerations for nanomaterials research. Your tasks are (i) to review the four modules performed prior to this module and evaluate them using ethical considerations and (ii) to develop and perform a short survey (10 min) that will help you to determine society’s perception of nanomaterials and their future potential. (ADD PDF LINK)

 

Pre-lab Exercises
Perform the following pre-lab exercises before you start working on the two tasks of the ethics module.

1.   Review the articles posted online on ethical and societal issues in Nanotechnology.
2.   What are ethical considerations associated with Nanotechnology?
3.   What are societal considerations associated with Nanotechnology?
4.   Which question should the survey try to answer?
5.   How would you conduct this survey?
6.   What information of the person surveyed do you need to record (age, educational level, gender, …)?
7.   How would you quantify the results of this survey?
9.   What do you expect the survey to produce?

 

Lab Exercises

Experiment 1: Ethical Considerations in Nanomaterials Research
In this experiment you will evaluate the four experimental modules that you have performed in the past 12 weeks using ethical considerations.    

1)   Review the two articles uploaded on blackboard on ethics:

- “Review on Safety Practices in the Nanotechnology Industry”1

- “6.5 Focus on Social, Ethical, Legal, International, and National Security Implications” from Societal Implications of Nanotechnology.2

2) For additional information check additional reading material provided on Blackboard as well as http://hum.iit.edu/NanoEthicsBank/

3)   Use the information you have gathered from the reading material about ethical issues such as work place safety and environmental impact to evaluate the Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering Modules with respect to safety and environmental protection.

Experiment 2: Societal Considerations in Nanomaterials Research
In this experiment you will develop a 10 min survey, which should enable you to determine the societal impact of nanomaterials research. You will also perform a survey on a small group of people and analyze the response you got from your survey.    

1)   Determine the question that you would like your survey to answer.
(For example: Do people know what nanomaterials are? Are people afraid of nanomaterials? Do people think nanomaterials research is important?. etc…)

2)   Formulate 3-5 questions, which will prompt the surveyed person to respond in such a way that he/she answers the survey question.
(Note, keep the questions short and easy to answer – the survey should not take more than 10 min)

3)   Survey 20 people (your siblings, friends, parents, grandparents, students, etc..)

4)   Summarize your results

 

Post-Lab Exercises

Use the information and your survey results to perform these exercises.
1.   Summarize the ethical considerations for Modules 1-4.
2.   Present the outcome of your survey.
3.   Has the survey provided an answer to the question you tried to answer?
4.   If not, briefly explain why your survey did not answer the question.
5.   Revise your survey to taking into account the facts discussed in post-lab exercise 4.