Board # 150 : First Year Experience of Running the Research Experience for Teachers in Alternative Energy and Automotive Engineering Program

The School of Engineering and Computer Science at Oakland University was awarded by the National Science Foundation a grant entitled “Research Experience for Teachers in Alternative Energy and Automotive Engineering: Energize K-12 Teaching and Learning.” This is a three year program starting on Oct 1, 2015. The objective of the proposed RET site is to strengthen K12 education in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines by each year involving around 12 middle and high school science and mathematics teachers and pre-service teachers from the metro-Detroit area in multidisciplinary and cutting edge research on alternative energy and automotive engineering for 6 weeks during the summer at Oakland University (OU). In the past summer, a total of 11 teachers have taken part in the RET program at Oakland University. This paper will focus on the organization of this program including recruitment, on-site activities and program assessment. Also, the lessons learned from running this type of program will be summarized. Some suggestions to keep the sustainability of the program will be also provided.