Corning’s recently launched Glass Age campaign is hitting the books this semester with the release of a new educational program for high school students. The program, created with the award winning curriculum experts at Young Minds Inspired (YMI), helps students discover how glass is changing our world.

Through four different activity sheets, students and teachers have the opportunity to experience the Glass Age through a set of YouTube videos featuring popular TV-hosts, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. After watching the videos, students express their understanding of the role of glass and share their ideas about using glass in a broad range of applications and innovations.

This program is actually the second collaboration between Corning and YMI. The first was an educational program based around the glass technologies shown in Corning’s popular “A Day Made of Glass” video series.

“The ‘A Day Made of Glass’ activity sheets were launched in 2013 and with more than 15,000 teachers either visiting the website or downloading the activities, the response has been tremendous, said Lisa Burns, director, corporate marketing and branding. 

“Today, we are continuing the momentum by working with YMI to launch a set of activities based on the new Glass Age campaign.”

YMI is promoting the new Glass Age program to more than 2 million subscribing teachers, but both sets of Corning-sponsored activity sheets are available for free for anyone to download and use for educational purposes. Also, both programs align with U.S. national and Common Core academic standards.

“This year, I used the ‘A Day Made of Glass’ videos as a starting point for discussion on the future of technology and communication, and as a prompt for a writing piece for some of my classes,” said Pandora Antzoulatos, physical sciences teacher at Slocum Skewes elementary school in Ridgefield, N.J. “The videos have really been great in jump starting students curiosity and interest.”

“After showing the videos, students remarked, ‘I can't wait to have a classroom like that.’ They really take an interest in technology and energy conservation,” said Pandora.

While the “A Day Made of Glass” activities are geared toward elementary and middle school students, the new Glass Age educational program is intended for high school students. The activities encourage students to think about glass differently, but also take a step further and consider a future in science, glass research, or other related fields. 

“The Glass Age captures students’ imaginations with amazing demonstrations of materials science and innovative glass technologies,” said Dr. Dominic Kinsley, managing partner and editor in chief, YMI. 

“Like Corning’s ‘A Day Made of Glass’ program for elementary and middle school students, this new program for high school students promotes STEM-learning across all disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and math — and can inspire students to pursue STEM careers.”

Visit the links below learn more about the “Glass Age” and “A Day Made of Glass” programs or download the free activity sheets.