1. Enigneering education project: developing outreach activities to promote enigneering to equity-owed groups
The project in which this internship is situated aims to attract more women and girls to the field of engineering using classroom interventions and an anti-oppressive, community-based entrepreneurial approach. Globally, women represent less than 20% of the engineering workforce. Although other professions have historically had similar disproportionate representations, engineering has struggled to improve this ratio while professions like medicine and law are much more balanced today. This internship will support the larger project that uses an escape-room style lock box activity to more holistically describe engineering as a technical discipline that promotes well-being in society, requires teamwork and communication, and is highly creative. By describing engineering in this way, we hypothesize that the engineering profession will resonate with a more diverse range of students. The project also uses anti-oppressive teaching practices to reduce the chance that equity-owed groups will be put off by the field of engineering. Finally, the project will use community-based entrepreneurship to incorporate designs of students and teachers to build activities that are developed directly with the end users. This internship will intersect multiple fields including education, marketing, entrepreneurship, engineering, and women and gender studies making it highly interdisciplinary with many chances for the intern to interact with professionals from a variety of fields. Depending on the interest and skills of the student, the direction of the project will be further developed between the student and the supervisor throughout the term.
Research area, student roles & skills
Research area: My research work spans applications of spectroscopy, leaf optical modelling in relation to agricultural applications, scholarship of teaching and learning in the engineering context, and engineering outreach. This internship is focused on the latter aspects with ties to developing puzzle-based outreach activities. The larger scope of the project in which this internship fits aims to develop classroom activities to describe engineering and STEM fields in a way that attracts a more diverse range of students. This research uses a community-based entrepreneurial approach to develop activities rooted in anti-oppressive educational approaches alongside student and teacher participants.
Student roles:
The project will involve a mix of hands-on building and testing, data analysis, outreach opportunities, and marketing depending on the expertise and interest of the intern. The intern will work with faculty and grad students in engineering, education, and business as well as with practicing teachers to help build, market, and deploy these inclusive outreach opportunities. This project will combine any or all of the options listed: (1) analyzing survey and focus group data to help identify activities and directions that resonate with equity-owed student groups such as women and girls, (2) working with students and teachers to co-design and promote classroom activities, (3) designing, drawing, and building physical puzzles and activities, and (4) delivering classroom activities to schools and in professional development workshops. The student will also be involved in the process of research ethics applications for training purposes and will participate in presentations and written articles as applicable. Because the project is highly interdisciplinary, the intern will also have opportunities to participate in projects that are tangentially related. The student will have access to maker-space equipment such as a laser cutter, 3D printers, power tools, and other equipment that will aid in manufacturing, and will work in a lab with engineering students and postdoctoral fellows. Additional opportunities for participation in other projects may be available based on the interest of the student and mentorship will be provided to the student through one-on-one meetings with the supervisor, general lab meetings, and training in equity, diversity, and belonging as is practiced in the lab.
Skills required:
The ideal student will have experiences that intersect many disciplines. Depending on the interest and skills of the student, the project will be adapted for best fit. Skills that would be an asset to the project include knowledge of the engineering field, CAD experience, experience working with children or youth, survey data analysis, experience in marketing, experience in anti-oppressive teaching, and an enjoyment of solving and designing puzzles. It is unlikely that one candidate will possess all these skills so candidates that align with some of these skills are encouraged to apply and highlight their own intersections with the project.