What's An Engineer? Teaching Teachers About Engineering

Many K-12 teachers do not know what an engineer does or what the different engineering disciplines are. Consequently, they are unsure of how to encourage their students to explore engineering as a career. To address this issue, a three day workshop was held during the Summer of 2001 at Michigan Technological University. During this workshop, teachers attended exploratory sessions where they completed hands-on experiments that pertained to specific engineering disciplines. The explorations covered Biomedical, Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Computer, Environmental, Geological, Materials, Mechanical and Mining Engineering. Each session lasted about 1 1/2 hours and included a brief synopsis of that engineering field. Most of the hands-on experiments could be directly used or adapted for use in K-12 classes. Some of the explorations were: constructing a soil resistivity meter, modeling oxygen uptake in a lake, mechanical dissection of a toaster, removal of solids from water using reverse osmosis and bridge design using West Point Bridge Designer software. At the end of the workshop, the participants completed an evaluation form. Most self-reported very little knowledge of specific engineering disciplines prior to the workshop. After the explorations, they reported a significant increase in their knowledge of the different disciplines. This paper describes the activities performed by the participants in the workshop and presents evaluation results. Lessons learned and future plans will also be presented in this paper. Introduction Most K-12 students learn about engineering as a career choice from what their parents or teachers tell them. Teachers encourage students who are good at math and science to go into engineering. Many teachers have difficulties communicating to their students what engineers do because they do not know enough about engineering (i.e. types of jobs and career paths, engineering disciplines). To address this issue, Michigan Technological University developed a 3 day workshop to introduce K-12 teachers to various engineering disciplines. Teachers learned about engineering through hands-on activities, many of which were usable in their classrooms. Workshop Structure For this workshop, teachers attended sessions that introduced them to Mining, Environmental, Civil, Mechanical, Biomedical, Geological, Electrical, Computer, Materials and Chemical Engineering. Engineering faculty from the various engineering departments developed and presented the sessions to the K-12 teachers. In addition to these sessions, teachers were shown how a remote Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) could be used in their classrooms. Each P ge 7.312.1 session was 1 1/2 hours. The teachers were given a brief description of an engineering discipline and completed a hands-on activity to illustrate an engineering concept/application or to demonstrate what that type of engineer could do. The sessions were designed such that the teachers would attain a bse level knowledge of the disciplines such that they could guide their students in the selection of an engineering career. For example, teachers that used the Mechanical Engineering activity in their classrooms could tell students who enjoyed dissecting common household appliances to explore Mechanical Engineering as a career choice. Futhermore, teachers who attended this workshop could give the student a basic definition of a given engineering disciplnes and then contact the Michigan Tech presenter for more infromation about that field. Many of the activities were ones that the teachers could use in their classrooms. Table 1 shows the itinerary for the workshop. Discipline Explorations Each faculty presenter developed an appropriate session for the K-12 teachers. These sessions ranged from working on computer simulations to conducting engineering experiments and studies. A summary of each exploration is given in the following. Mining Engineering: With the intent of offering an overview of the mining/minerals industry, the session addressed the Mining and Mineral Process Engineering curriculum, potential careers, and a demonstration using a computer to model an ore body. The teachers were introduced to the various phases involved in exploration, development, and the operation of a mine. Images were shown of the various phases of a particular project. A CD of these images was sent to the teachers so they could introduce their students to mining engineering. Environmental Engineering Table 1: K-12 Typical Teacher Workshop Itinerary Time Wednesday Thursday Friday 8:30-10:00 Introduction/Icebreaker Mechanical Engineering Electrical Engineering