Design of Polymer Processing Activities for Pre-College Students

Plastic products play an important role in daily life. To support manufacture of the massive quantity of polymer products generated every day, the plastics industry currently employs over 900,000 workers and has more than 13,000 establishments in United States. However, polymer manufacturing processes are not well-known or widely understood by the general public. Helping pre-college students gain experience with common polymer processes affords a fun and useful way to prepare them to be better consumers and potential product designers and manufacturers. This paper presents activities and exercises that introduce students to plastic thermoforming, casting, and extrusion processes that can be completed in a typical science or project-friendly classroom. To highlight the multidisciplinary nature of polymer product realization, science and mathematics applications such as geometric measurements, volume, mass, density, and estimation are embedded into the activities. These activities and exercises are intended for students at the middle school level and above, but some can be easily adapted for groups as young as pre-kindergarten children.