Conference Session

Pre K-12 Track - Technical Session V

Collection

2018 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference

Authors

Michael Frye, University of the Incarnate Word; Chaoyi Wang, University of the Incarnate Word; Sreerenjini C. Nair, University of the Incarnate Word; Yvonne Calvo Burns, Camp Program Coordinator

Tagged Topics

Pre K-12 Education

middle schools in San Antonio tocontinue some of the miniGEMS curriculum throughout the academic year.Introduction and Motivation The University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) is the fourth-largest private university in thestate of Texas. Even though the sixty percent of its students are female, the number of femalesenrolled in UIW’s Engineering Program is less than 5% and trending downwards. The sametrend follows in several other STEAM programs offered by the neighboring educationalinstitutions in Texas. There has been numerous studies in education that emphasize theimportance of teaching and learning science in middle school classes [1]. By having an earlyexposure to the fundamental aspects of science at the elementary or middle school