A weekend STEM enrichment program for tribal high school teachers and students

Abstract

Attracting high school students to college engineering programs has been recognized as a challenge by several engineering organizations. One of the reasons for the low percentage enrolment of high school graduates into engineering programs is that many math/science teachers and counselors lack understanding of engineering applications within the subjects they teach and prospects associated with engineering careers. The instruction at the school level is often criticized for not adequately emphasizing science and mathematics, especially connections with engineering applications. Many students have difficulty connecting math and science courses to common phenomena seen all around and to future careers. This problem is further aggravated on Indian reservations in North Dakota because of their isolated locations and distance from industries. The authors developed a weekend academic program, "Sunday Academy", carried out on four North Dakota Indian reservations, to stimulate Native American students' interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), to attract to engineering programs, and to engage high school teachers and tribal college instructors in the process of developing engineering and applied science lesson plans. The academy consisted of a series of one-day academic sessions presented monthly to junior and senior high school students. The lesson plans for the sessions were developed collaboratively by a group of university and community college faculty and high school teachers. This project provided unique opportunities for engineering professors to work with high school students directly, to familiarize high school teachers and tribal college instructors with engineering concepts and approaches, and to be knowledgeable about and sensitive to Indian culture. To make it a successful program, the authors had to overcome various challenges, including selection of lesson topics and hands-on activities that are interesting and suitable for the students, and engagement of high school teachers and tribal college instructors in learning engineering concepts while respecting their expertise. In this paper, approaches used in the topic selection and lesson plan development, implementation of student activities, impacts on high school teachers and students, challenges faced by the collaboration, and lessons learned are discussed. The academy model is generic and may be applied to any high school student population. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2006.