instruction to createclassroom curricula aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The specificobjectives of the program are to: 1. Enhance teachers’ bioengineering content knowledge and pedagogical skills. 2. Enable teachers to translate laboratory research into practical, NGSS-aligned curricula. 3. Address educational equity by preparing teachers to better support diverse, urban student populations.Adopted in Illinois in 2014 to be in effect by the 2016-17 school year, NGSS required complexcurriculum planning on the part of districts. The framework relates science to students’ everydaylives, ensures students learn about being careful consumers of scientific and technologicalinformation, and prepares them with the skills
during the summers of 2006 to 2008 and at Idaho National Labs in 2010. She held the Georgia Tech ADVANCE Professorship with the College of Engineering from 2006 to 2012, where she was responsible for initiatives to help the female faculty of the college succeed. She was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing from 2009 to 2012. She was the Senior Associate Chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2016-2021, where she was responsible for academic operations. Prof. Weitnauer’s research focus is currently split between MIMO wireless communications and sensor-driven, marker-less, interactive and immersive digital art. She leads the Electronic ARTrium laboratory, which she
cooperation, communication,creativity, and collaboration. These soft skills positively impact students development, includingtheir career development [1]. STEM Summer Camps, especially those who focus on hands-onlearning and laboratory experiences can improve students’ interest in and persistence in STEMfields [2]. In addition to the skills and knowledge developed, Camps on Campus allow studentsto engage with faculty, staff, students, and university facilities to enrich their experiences andallow for a greater sense of self efficacy as campers see themselves as university students.The access to high quality facilities, including university laboratories and faculty who lead theselabs, is an important aspect of our campus. Not only are these facilities
our university. The two-week-long program, modeled after college-level courses, had a mix of rising juniors and seniors.The students resided on campus and attended laboratory sessions four days a week, in two three-hour periods each day. The topics covered included the basics of robotics and key componentssuch as sensors, actuators, kinematics, obstacle avoidance, and trajectory planning. Each sessionstarted with a short lecture providing an overview of the activities and relevant theory. Studentsthen worked on several platforms over the two-week camp, including robotic arm manipulators,mobile robots, and a four-legged robot. Simultaneously, students worked in groups on a researchproject that focused on proposing a robotic design to address a
with an opportunity to develop pedagogical skills. Each semester,senior biology, chemistry, and physics students from local secondary schools complete open-ended biomedical engineering-themed projects within post-secondary laboratories guided byinstructional support from graduate student volunteer mentors and their classroom teachers. Theprogram framework provides students with an opportunity to explore STEM interests byengaging in realistic, open-ended problem solving using state-of-the-art research tools andequipment not typically available in the secondary school environment. Previous studies of pre-pandemic Discovery Program outcomes revealed multiplepositive outcomes for participants. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and
times.Afternoon Session:The afternoon session of the program consisted of a hands-on experience to explore a real-worldapplication in an electronics laboratory. To develop professional skills, one must begin by keenlyobserving the world around. With the hopes of empowering future engineers to notice theinterconnected systems at play in our world, an Electrocardiogram (EKG) circuit for theElectrical Engineering module was developed [12]. The circuit diagram of the introduced EKGcircuit is shown in Figure 2 while Figure 3 shows the connection diagram provided to students tobuild the EKG circuit in the lab. During the afternoon session, students constructed the circuitshown in Figure 2 and Figure 3, evaluated it with a test signal, and then used it to
offer opportunities for local high schoolstudents, particularly underrepresented and first-generation students, to take college-equivalentcourses that are otherwise not available to them. The study will focus on five main themes thatwere integral to the course design: strategies used to create a cohesive and engaging learningcommunity, methods employed to help students manage their learning in an online environment,building students' self-efficacy in their engineering abilities, approaches used to maintain studentengagement, learning and motivation in a virtual setting, and the implementation of onlinehands-on laboratory sessions that students completed at home. By examining these themes, thepaper aims to provide insights into the effectiveness
, and evaluate five educational instruments in the years 2019 and 2023. Due to smallsample sizes in both years and similarities in program activities, program participants’evaluations did not have a significant variance that justifies statistical analyses using twodifferent samples. Therefore, no statistical analyses were conducted to differentiate pre- andpost-COVID program evaluation results, and data from these two years were combined, resultingin a sample size of thirty.Program Overview The NSTI at Central Connecticut State University program introduces a wide range ofSTEM and transportation topics through carefully designed curriculum activities, includinglectures led by professors, hands-on laboratory exercises tailored to engage
pandemic was disruptive to the education system across the world in countlessways. And while remote and virtual learning tried to address the challenge of content delivery,hands-on laboratory experiences which provided authentic science inquiry for high schoolstudents were impossible to replace during the pandemic. Additionally, the valuable afterschooland summer programs that supplemented such in school training (e.g., science fairs, roboticscompetitions, Science Olympiad) were not available as well. Research tells us that suchexperiences are crucial to catalyze a high school students’ interest in STEM careers [1], [2].Even more detrimental is the fact that these activities are often identified as milestones forstudents who are college-bound
highest undergraduate team ranking in the 2024 international ACC Quanser QCar competition and continues to compete in ongoing challenges. She is also a dedicated STEM advocate, serving as a counselor for the GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science) summer program. In addition to her academic and research pursuits, Gabriella is an NCAA Division I swimmer and is fluent in both English and Spanish.Stephanie Weiss-Lopez, University of the Incarnate Word Stephanie Weiss-Lopez has overseen GEMS since 2020 as a Project Manager and Coordinator. Ms. Weiss-Lopez is a UIW alum with a degree in Meteorology, currently the AVS Laboratories Project Manager, and an MBA student at UIW. She has over 18 years of management and
standards for a laboratory science course.History and 3 Units Including U.S. History and World History.Social Science World Language 2 Units Of the same language. Physical As required by law “Physical education shall be taught as a required subject in all Education (4 units) grades for all students” (M.G.L. c.71 §3). Arts 1 Unit Additional Core 5 Units Other additional coursework (including Career and Technical Courses Education) or any of the above.Massachusetts has invested in expanding CS opportunities by providing credit-bearingopportunities, teacher licensure pathways and grant opportunities to districts to
tasks, such as working oncars and homes. This response highlights a crucial point: engineering problem-solving is notconfined to a classroom or laboratory setting. José’s family experiences with car repair and homeimprovement reflect the type of practical, applied engineering work that is integral to manycommunities, particularly in trades and skilled labor. When José describes his father’s work, heexplains the process of buying a car for a small amount, fixing it, and then selling it for a higherprice. This process mirrors key engineering principles, such as design, repair, and optimization,and it highlights how students can connect real-world problem-solving with the academic contentthey encounter in the classroom. Moreover, this example also
recognitions, including being recognized as one of the 23 most powerful women engineers in the world by Business Insider and one of the Top 50 U.S. Women in Tech by Forbes. In 2013, she also founded Zyrobotics, which developed STEM educational products to engage children of all abilities. Prior to Georgia Tech, Dr. Howard was at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she held the title of Senior Robotics Researcher and Deputy Manager in the Office of the Chief Scientist. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2025 Engaging Engineering Students in Experiential Learning through Robot Droids and K-12 Outreach (Evaluation)AbstractIn this full evaluation paper, we discuss a study that
are the Founding President of the Policy Advocacy in Science and Engineering (PASE) student organization and Vice President of the Engineering Education Graduate Student Council at the University of Florida.Dr. Nancy Ruzycki, University of Florida Dr. Nancy Ruzycki, is the Director of Undergraduate Laboratories and Faculty Lecturer within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida Herbert Wetheim College of Engineering. Her focus is on developing curriculum, professional development and coaching models focused on use of system thinking and conceptual pedagogical practices. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2025Development of K-12 STEM Teacher
educational out-of-school time STEM programs. Outside of their research, they are the Founding President of the Policy Advocacy in Science and Engineering (PASE) student organization and Vice President of the Engineering Education Graduate Student Council at the University of Florida.Dr. Nancy Ruzycki, University of Florida Dr. Nancy Ruzycki, is the Director of Undergraduate Laboratories and Faculty Lecturer within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida Herbert Wetheim College of Engineering. Her focus is on developing curriculum, professional development and coaching models focused on use of system thinking and conceptual pedagogical practices
rooms and laboratories of the engineering and computer science departments in order to create as many authentic contextual factors, e.g., social, situational, and temporal circumstances, as possible. • To support social comparison, the activities are designed mono-educational for female pupils only. Additionally, the group setting gives multiple models in performing the task with a variety of further differing characteristics. • To reduce a potential attributional error, i.e., attributing success not to one’s own capabilities but to external factors, e.g., (task difficulty, fortuitous, or external aids), especially external aids are reduced to a minimum after implementing the needed capabilities
of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) summer camps to findwhich camp structure better fosters student interest in STEM fields and disciplines. One campstructure features more activities throughout the day for a shorter period of time, while thesecond involves longer sessions with fewer activities overall. In the summers of 2023 and 2024,18 and 19 students, respectively, participated in week-long summer camps covering ECEconcepts and practices. Each camp, lasting four to five days, included hands-on activities, toursof ECE laboratories, and a week-long group project where students built circuits using theSparkFun Inventor’s Kit. The students worked in groups during the project phase, each with anundergraduate mentor who facilitated and
Paper ID #48201This is our community: Designing for Rightful Presence in middle schoolengineering (Fundamental)Mrs. Virginia Swindell, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Virginia Swindell is a 3rd year Ph.D. student focused on the engineering education component of STEM (K-12) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Previously, she served for fifteen years as a Mechanical Engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base. In that position, she was immersed in the design, development, and demonstration of traditional munitions (and non-traditional micro
lotus leaves [1, 6, 8]. Thisexploration not only deepens one’s appreciation of biological mechanisms but also helps oneapply these insights to engineering design challenges, leading to innovative solutions that alignwith natural principles [9].The integration of BID into pre-college engineering settings, including classrooms, laboratories,and extracurricular programs, offers transformative opportunities for curriculum developmentand teaching methodologies [1, 10-11]. By embedding BID into the learning experience,educators can create a dynamic environment that stimulates student engagement, encouragescritical thinking, and promotes collaborative problem-solving [1, 6, 8]. Further, the application ofbiological analogies provides engineering with
Science Education in 2016 from North CaMin Jung Lee, University of North DakotaDanielle Marie Rhemer, Old Dominion UniversityDr. Krishnanand Kaipa, Old Dominion University Dr. Krishnanand Kaipa is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Old Dominion University. Dr. Kaipa received his BE in Electrical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and his master’s and PhD degrees from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of Vermont and the University of Maryland, where he was also a research assistant professor. Dr. Kaipa directs the Collaborative Robotics & Adaptive Machines (CRAM) Laboratory