Summer Enrichment Workshops for Promoting Engineering Education

Abstract

Abstract Summer Enrichment Workshops for Promoting Engineering EducationThis summer enrichment program offers high school and middle school students the opportunityto participate in hands-on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics activities deliveredby university STEM faculty and engineering professionals. The paper describes and comparesresults of two enrichment workshops that were conducted during the summer of the last twoyears. These workshops were funded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board(THECB) to increase recruitment and graduation of Hispanic and other underrepresentedminorities in engineering.The workshops provided high school and middle school students with a realistic and engagingintroduction to engineering. The participants had the opportunity to 1) learn about engineeringfields through hands-on problem-solving experiences; 2) experience the engineering designprocess using a software program (AutoCAD) and applying mathematics and science principles;3) engage in teamwork activities that integrate software and hardware knowledge to build andprogram Lego robots; 4) Participate in a field trip and talk to engineers on the job; and 5) Engagein a question and answer panel session where professional engineers describe their experiencesand expectations of new hires. Each workshop served 22 participants. The papers will presentstatistics and evaluation results of the two workshops.