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Session 1692

The Benefit of Outreach to Engineering Students

Melissa Pickering, Emily Ryan, Kaitlyn Conroy, Brian Gravel, Merredith Portsmore Tufts University

Abstract

Engineering K-12 education outreach programs provide a unique opportunity for undergraduate engineers to develop communication and leadership skills as well as build self-confidence. Recently, there has been an engineering education outreach surge at many universities across the country. While the main goal of these programs is to assist educators in incorporating engineering into the K-12 curriculum, there are offshoot benefits to the undergraduate students who participate in outreach efforts, especially females. Capitalizing on a student’s fresh engineering knowledge and young ambitions to make an impact, outreach programs send undergraduates into K-12 classrooms to introduce the engineering discipline to young children. Female engineers demonstrate a large interest in these outreach efforts, and subsequently enhance their overall undergraduate engineering experience. Beyond the initial self-satisfaction of working with young children, which gratifies the female instinct, the young women engineers are able to gain a greater confidence in the technical discipline that is often difficult to obtain in the male-dominated college classroom environment. Tufts University offers this opportunity through the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach, and in the following paper, the participating female engineers account their enhanced leadership, communication, and technical skills as a direct result of outreach.

Introduction

As technology becomes increasingly important in the global community, there is an ever growing need for technological literacy amongst the population. Integrating engineering with education on the K-12 level will foster the development of students’ technological literacy; a valuable skill in becoming a global citizen. Engineering outreach is, thus, required in all societies to educate all people on the importance of engineering and the role it plays in society. A great deal of outreach stems from the university environment, and at Tufts University, outreach is a significant component of the School of Engineering.

The Center for Engineering Educational Outreach (CEEO) at Tufts University is dedicated to increasing people's knowledge and awareness of, and comfort with, technology and engineering. The work to complete this mission centers around 3 main areas:

1) Research - learning how children and teachers learn engineering

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Portsmore, M., & Conroy, K., & Pickering, M., & Ryan, E., & Gravel, B. (2004, June), The Benefit Of Outreach To Engineering Students Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13362