Active learning is the framework behind student success in S&T’s Hot Glass Shop. In this video, Dr. Mary Reidmeyer, teaching professor emeritus of materials science and engineering, shares the joys and challenges of instructing students in the shop that she co-founded in 2007.

Please note that this video was filmed before current COVID-19 guidance. The hot glass shop continues to operate this fall while following the latest guidelines.

“Ceramic Engineering 3240 is proceeding with 3-4 people in the shop at a time, masked and distanced,” Reidmeyer says. “I am currently building an alternative inflator so that by mid-term when we start making open pieces with a blow pipe and we will be using regulated compressed air.”

“When at the bench, the student will attach a hose to the blow pipe and use foot pedals to control the flow of compressed air into the glass bubble,” she says. “We will be scheduling project teams to come in and make items that have been ordered from the shop. We normally clean tools with denatured alcohol so we just expanded the list of surfaces and frequency of cleaning to disinfect for COVID-19.”