It’s a project where geology meets engineering meets art — and part of it has been in the works for more than two billion years.
This summer, some undergraduate students at SD Mines are foregoing the traditional summer vacation to attend a 10-week summer research program that integrates ceramics with science.
The program was born from a National Science Foundation grant awarded in 2021 to build a glass blowing studio with the aim of integrating more creativity into STEM education. But thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the equipment for that studio was on hold for 18 months.
Katrina Donovan is a senior lecturer with the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering.
“That was pretty stressful for us because we were like, ‘what are we going to do this first year-and-a-half waiting for this equipment to come in?’”
But, she said the equipment delay was a blessing in disguise.
“We were able to shift gears and focus on local minerals, less on glass, until the equipment came in. And I think that’s where we started working directly with the geologists. What do we have in our backyard — which they’re like, they’ve known about how awesome our backyard is for a long time. They’re like 'finally, you guys are catching up!'”
Sarah Keenan is an assistant professor of Geology at SD Mines. She says local minerals include quartz, feldspar, and clay just to name a few.
"Even though we’ve been doing geology in the Black Hills collectively since the gold rush, there’s till so much we don’t know about our own backyard, including where these minerals are and now developing their uses for newer technologies," said Keenan. "So, I think there’s a lot of really cool innovations that are happening and at the basis of that is doing fundamental research with undergrads, getting them trained on skillsets that can be then used in industrial applications and in their career and futures hopefully.”
But how does an ancient art like ceramics play into scientific and technological innovations?
“You know, there’s an old way that’s convenient and comfortable, but you know, there isn’t growth in that if we want to have disruptive technologies," Donovan said. "Just the word 'disruptive' tells you it’s not going to be the same path. If you look at science, technology, the new equipment, and technology going forward, it takes creativity to develop those to think out of the box.”
Practically speaking, Donovan said, creativity plays a huge role in testing products.
“I also like breaking things to see how our chemistry went, said Donovan. "Yeah, my tagline is 'I have the best job in the world. I go to work, I break things, and I don’t get fired.' I actually get paid to do it. I love it. But it is important the products we make...we don’t want them to fail at the wrong time. So as much as I joke about breaking things, I do enjoy creating something and then seeing if it will withstand what we need it to in a building and a car or other places.”
For Keenan, melding art and science is nothing new.
"From the early days of people figuring out what elements were, they often were intimately connected with artists at the time and you can even see scientific things in art, said Keenan. "It’s a really long history of connection and I think it’s important for scientists to have that creativity still part of the forefront."
But the benefits of incorporating ceramics into the curriculum extend beyond innovation. It’s also potentially improving mental health—at least anecdotally. At first, the students were a little resistant to the changes, but Donovan said they started seeing attitude or perspective shifts in students after integrating some of the activities. So, as the scientists they are, they decided to measure it in a self-reporting qualitative study of more than 300 students.
"It’s still amazing how, even if something didn’t turn out the way you wanted, they still felt better or at least thought they felt better afterwards, and I think that’s pretty important, said Donovan. "One of the really cool things I think about the geology and mineral side of this is just getting your hands dirty touching earth. There’s something that’s really special and probably primal about that. How important it really is. I think it takes us back to our roots.”
Getting back to our roots is exactly what Donovan and Keenan plan to do this summer in SD Mines’ Summer Research Experience. Besides field trips to the Badlands and other local geological caches, the 10-week program focuses on research and communication as well as ceramics.
But Donovan said she’s looking forward to another element of the program.
“We have a guest speaker from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe — who’s an archaeologist for them — who’ll be talking about the local history and how they’ve found fragments of pottery in different places in Western South Dakota. And then we’re also going down to Red Cloud and we’ll be able to see the art center there as well.”
The summer research experience runs until Aug. 8.