TEAMS (Tomorrow's Engineers... creAte. iMagine. Succeed.)
is a strategic partnership between the
University of Colorado at Boulder
's
College of Engineering
and local school districts to enrich students' academic experience in science and math, to better prepare youth to engage in a university-level engineering and technology path.
Funded in part by a National Science Foundation
GK-12 grant
, the TEAMS program places undergraduate and graduate engineering student "
Fellows
" in classrooms weekly to
use engineering as a vehicle to integrate hands-on science and math instruction,
exposing students and teachers to the creativity of engineering in an inquiry-based way.
Lafayette Schools, Boulder Valley School District (
BVSD
)
The students, teachers and administrators of the six Lafayette neighborhood schools -
Lafayette Elementary, Pioneer Elementary, Ryan Elementary, Sanchez Elementary, Angevine Middle and Centaurus High (Pre-Engineering Academy)
- together with the CU College of Engineering faculty and students have committed to a ten-year, pre-engineering continuum aimed at enhancing the science and math curricula to explore
engineering in everyday life
. Through hands-on engineering experiences, youngsters come to understand the role that engineers play in meeting the needs and dreams of society, draw connections to meaningful applications of science, math and technology --- and hopefully become motivated to create a bright future for themselves through engineering and technology.
Through the TEAMS program, university Fellows teach engineering weekly in grades 3-12 classrooms through hands-on science lessons and activities cast within an engineering context.
TEAMS also provides resources and Fellows for before- and after-school TEAMS clubs. Interested students participate in fun projects as they learn about the application of science and math concepts through the lens of engineering applications. Some youngsters join the college students in exhibiting their projects at CU's twice-a-year Design Expo on campus in a fun and relaxed envronment, while seeing for themselves the opportunities that will be available to them as engineering students in the future.
Early Results - Of the 30 seniors who participated in the Centaurus High School Pre-Engineering Academy during 2005-06, 21 enrolled in university engineering programs in fall 2006.
Denver School of Science and Technology
(DSST)
, Denver Public Schools
At DSST, engineering students and faculty from CU-Boulder teach Creative Engineering hands-on engineering elective courses, targeted at inspiring students to explore engineering as a future career path. In these 12-week courses, students from all walks of life, including populations traditionally underrepresented in the field of engineering, are immersed in the creative engineering design process, including emphasis on cooperative teamwork and engineering design/build projects. They display their creations at an end-of-course design expo.
The goals of the Creative Engineering electives are to enhance student learning through experiencing relevant, hands-on, inquiry-based engineering; to instill knowledge of engineering as a career through an understanding of the pervasiveness of engineering in our world; and to provide an appreciation of engineering as the creation of things for the benefit of society.
The DSST students step into the university world with a spring field trip to the CU-Boulder campus, for an all-day
Engineering Institute
. Some students also participate in summer pre-engineering activities, such as the weeklong
Engineering Success Institute
.
Why K-12 Engineering?
For more information, see a paper titled,
"Creative Engineering: Helping Ninth-Grade Students Discover Engineering" (PDF)
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0338326. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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