Educational partnerships with secondary schools to promote minority entry into the engineering and technology disciplines - The initiatives and achievements of project smile

Abstract

The strong need to educate the next generation of technically oriented students within minority communities and women has continuously been a focus of many K-12 coalitions. Available data shows a very low representation of minorities and women in the Science and Engineering fields. Through early introduction to engineering and technology, and dissemination of information related to careers and education in these fields, minority and women student representation is being expanded. This paper reports on a collaborative project between a university and middle and high schools to address this low representation. A coalition involving faculty in the university, and science and math teachers in various school districts resulted in the development of a unique educational model that was first piloted in the summer 2005. The model comprises of a series of short educational modules emphasizing hands-on applications within various technical areas. Four modules were developed and offered to the middle and high school students. They involved electronics, manufacturing, structural modeling by bridge building, and plastics processing. Except for bridge building, each module was developed as a stand alone component to be completed within a two to three hour time frame, and culminated into a tangible product that the students took home. Through the application of hands-on experiments, the students were able to feel the connection to the engineering and technology areas as they developed a sense of skill, workmanship, and accomplishment by making a complete part. The bridge building was team-based and the individual student teams competed amongst each other to build a bridge that held the largest load. The winning team and runner-up were awarded prizes. This paper reports the development, initiatives and accomplishments of the project, which has been funded by Verizon Foundation. The effect of the learning modules on increasing the students' knowledge about engineering and technology, and the related careers is also discussed. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2006.