Engineering Ambassadors: Bridging the Gap between Engineering and Education Undergraduates and Middle and High Schools Students (Evaluation)

Engineering Ambassadors program at Manhattan College includes engineering and education undergraduate students and faculty members who work together and aim to improve STEM education and encourage young generation of middle/high school students into STEM related occupations. Also, with the support of national science foundation we partnered with local schools who are mostly serving financially disadvantage and under-represented minorities to have regular visits from these schools. In this paper we will explain the goals, achievements and challenges of the program. Introduction Reaching out to high school students to introduce engineering concepts and encouraging them to engineering disciplines has been a very important role of higher education institutes. Several different programs have been developed toward this goal such as Galileo Project at University of Connecticut [1], Engineering ambassadors program at Pennsylvania State University [2] and engineering ambassadors’ network [3]. Engineering ambassadors program at Penn State was established in 2009 [4]. The program became a network when United Technologies Corporation (UTC), University of Connecticut, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute formed a partnership. The partnership has expanded to include over 20 universities and increased industries attention to include Chevrolet, Rockwell Automation, and other companies. UTC in addition to Chevrolet and Rockwell Automation were able to supply financial support and provide internship opportunities to selected ambassadors. All three of the institutions have the same message from National Academy of Engineering, “Changing the Conversation”, provide outreach to middle and high school students, and provide professional development for the ambassadors. The major difference of our engineering ambassadors program comparing to engineering ambassadors network is, instead of industry partner, we collaborate with the School of Education and health and local high schools to encourage the students both from college and high schools to consider STEM teaching jobs as well as engineering ones. We also work with future teachers to educate them about engineering and how they can incorporate engineering in their math and science courses. Engineering Ambassadors at Manhattan College Engineering Ambassadors program at Manhattan College started in fall 2012 as a student club, following the model of engineering ambassadors’ network. In 2014 with the support of National Science Foundation (NSF) and the collaboration with School of Education and Health, the program expanded and introduced several new aspects. In this section we explain the goals and underlying needs as well as specific objectives of the program. 1. Introducing engineering disciplines to middle/high school students and encouraging them to consider STEM related education. According to the National Academy of Engineering [5], two-thirds of the growth in our GDP has its roots in STEM. Therefore STEM jobs are projected to continue to grow by 17 percent (2008 to 2018), as compared to 10 percent in non-STEM fields. But report after report shows that the next generation of American employees will be unprepared for these jobs. This gap between demand and supply raised national concerns about producing STEM workforce and equally important STEM grades 6-12 education [6]. Although several states indicated a combination of STEM standards, evidence points to the emphasis on the science and math components, with limited technology and nearly non-existent engineering as part of the former standards in grades 6-12 education. Exposing students from early ages to engineering majors has the potential to contribute to the vital need of engineering workforce [7]. Currently, projects and programs incorporated in some grades 6-12 settings to promote engineering education include: Engineer Your World [8], Project Lead the Way [9], Engineering Is Elementary [10], Engineering by Design [11], and Future City [12] play an important role to achieve this goal. Through our engineering ambassador program, middle/high school students become acquainted with engineering and engineering profession and receive information regarding the paths to realizing an engineering related profession. We aim to broaden the pool of applicants for engineering programs by targeting next generation college students. 2. Encouraging women and underrepresented minorities to engineering programs and providing mentoring opportunity to high school students. A portion of visit time is allocated to discussion between engineering ambassadors and high school students for conversation about engineering and what is the path to become an engineer. Since our engineering ambassadors’ group is a very diverse group, it provides role models and mentors to middle and high school students from underrepresented minority groups. In addition, as explained in next section, we mainly visit schools serving under-privileged students primarily from under-represented minorities. 3. Improving Engineering students’ presentations skills According to ASME 2030 [13], one of the major skills that engineering students required accomplishing in order to become successful in engineering profession, is communication skills. Unfortunately there is no formal education on communication skills incorporated in engineering curriculum. This program provides such opportunity by including presentation skills, group work, public speaking and other related workshops for engineering students. 4. Providing opportunities for engineering students to participate in hands-on experiment design Although engineering profession involves designing and building new products, engineering education, especially the first two years is heavily invested in math and science courses. For some students, since they have very little opportunity to do engineering related hands-on activities, this can be discouraging. This program provides a no-risk environment for engineering students to design and implement hands-on activities while having fun. 5. Learning about all engineering majors and collaborating within interdisciplinary teams One intended ABET outcome for evaluating engineering programs is “An ability to function on multidisciplinary teams” [14]. Traditionally engineering students participate in required and elective courses offered by the department of their major and have little to zero chance to learn about other engineering disciplines. This program sets the stage for engineering students from different engineering majors to work within multi-disciplinary groups and learn about the other disciplines in engineering. 6. Facilitate engineering and education students collaboration This program brings together engineering and education students and faculty to collaborate and learn from each other. Engineering participants benefit from education participants’ knowledge in developing lesson plans, teaching techniques and classroom management skills. Engineering and education faculty work together to advise the students from both schools. This collaborative environment creates a mutual learning atmosphere for both students and faculty. 7. Provide opportunity to learn about engineering for education students The release of the Next Generation Science Standards in April 2013 has included engineering in K-12 curriculum in NYS [15]. However education majors have no education on engineering topics and are not prepared to teach engineering courses. This program provides a unique opportunity for education students to learn about engineering and learn how to incorporate engineering into their math and science lessons. 8. Encouraging engineering students to enroll in a newly developed minor in engineering education. Manhattan College has started a new minor in engineering education for engineering students and a certificate in engineering education for education majors. The engineering ambassador program has also served as a recruiting tool for the two new academic programs. Students from both schools have the opportunity to learn about engineering education and receive a first-hand experience. Interested students in engineering education then continue to the minor or certificate program. Program Participants Participants of this program include engineering students, education students, engineering and education faculty members and middle/high school students. The program started with 10 Mechanical Engineering students, one engineering faculty and only one visit per semester. However the program has been expanded to 19 students from all engineering disciplines and 4 education students from freshman to senior. Mentoring faculty also expanded to 5 engineering and 2 education faculty members. Also the number of visits has been increased to two to three per semester. Graphs in Figures 1 to 3 show the diversity of engineering ambassadors. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 African American Asian Hispanic Lebanese (Middle Eastern) Native American White Ethnicity Figure 1. Majors of engineering ambassadors (%) Figure 3. Ethnicity of engineering ambassadors (%) Figure 2. Gender of engineering ambassadors (%) As mentioned before one of the goals of the program is to target fanatically disadvantage and underrepresented minorities to encourage them to consider engineering disciplines. The NYC Department of Education, specifically its Bronx schools (District 10) and the Yonkers Public School Districts are among the neediest (fanatically) in the nation [16]. Therefore, one public school from each district was selected for engineering ambassadors’ visits. We partnered with two of these schools and have one visit per semester. The two partner schools are In-Tech Academy and Riverside High School. In-Tech Academy, located in District 10 the most over-crowded district in the State, serves approximately 1,100 students in grades 6-12. Eighty-five percent of the students qualify for free or