2000 Towards an Engineering Outreach Philosophy

Steven B. Zwickel, 2000

The University of Wisconsin College of Engineering’s K-12 Outreach Program

Background_________________________________________

About eight years ago, the College of Engineering received funding from the NSF to create an Engineering Research Center for Plasma-Aided Manufacturing(ERC). One part of the ERC grant was used to set up a K-12 Outreach Program to bring educational materials related to area schools. Among those involved in creating the Outreach Program were Denise Denton, Cathy Cetrangolo, and Perry Sandstrom. They developed a “Plasma and Microchip Fabrication Kit” and trained undergraduates to present the materials in classrooms in and around Madison.

     I took over as Coordinator of the K-12 Outreach Program from Cathy Cetrangolo in November, 1996. The NSF grant will soon end and the Program has been placed under the auspices of “The Learning Center” within the College of Engineering.

Mission_____________________________________________

For a program to be successful, it must have a clear mission and a definite purpose. It can’t operate in a vacuum—it must function in the context of what teachers are actually doing in the classroom. We were sending our presenters out with no clearly defined purpose beyond simply doing the presentation. I decided to re-write the mission statement of the K-12 Engineering Outreach Program.

I interviewed teachers and researched science education programs. It was not necessary to reinvent the wheel. There are many outreach programs around that offer many of the same things that we want to offer. I collected information about the different kinds of programs—some do outreach in a museum or on campus, others have programs that go into the schools:

• Universities and Colleges (or a department within a college)
• Science and Technology Museums
• Local School systems
• Independent Programs supported by NSF and corporate funds

Based on my research, I was able to clarify the goals of the CoE program. This is how I describe our program and define our mission:

The K-12 Outreach Program sends undergraduate students to area schools to talk about careers and training in technology and science while demonstrating some of the ways in which engineers are changing our world.The mission of the K-12 Outreach Program is to improve science and engineering literacy, to engage and interest school children and their teachers, to expose undergraduate students to outreach and to its rewards, and to make science and technology fun.

Learning Theory______________________________________

To put the K-12 Outreach Program in the context of science education in the schools, I turned to the UW School of Education. After discussions with Prof. Kathryn Blomker (Curriculum & Instruction), and after doing my own research, I was able to develop a learning theory for the Outreach Program consistent with age-appropriate instruction and science education in the Wisconsin schools. I have attempted to integrate this theory into the presenter training program and manuals.

I also realized that the K-12 Program needed to be adjustable for children of different abilities. I was able to find a theoretical basis for this:

For younger audiences, the presentations are more hands-on and experiential. This follows the National Science Teachers Association Position Statement: Elementary School Science, which can be found at http://www.nsta.org/handbook/elem.htm

Middle school students need a chance to explore science in their lives and to become comfortable and personally involved with it, according to the National Science Teachers Association Position Statement: Science Education for Middle Level {Grades 5-9}Students, which can be found at http://www.nsta.org/handbook/midlev.htm

At the high school level, outreach programs are longer and involve discussions of both theoretical concepts in science and of how students make career choices. This is drawn from the American Association for the Advancement of Science Project 2061, which can be found at http://www.aaas.org/project2061/2061main.htm

Structure and Organization____________________________

The K-12 Outreach Program has undergone some changes since I became coordinator in 1997.

      Kits

Each presentation is accompanied by a kit of materials for visual aids. These kits are kept in 33-gallon storage tubs in my office in General Engineering. They are not too heavy and can easily be transported in the back seat of a car.

Before their presentations, presenters can stop by to look through the kits or to do a practice run before going out to the schools. If they want to practice, I try to find them an empty room in the General Engineering Building where they can spread out the contents of the kit and familiarize themselves with the material.

We have added new outreach presentations to the program. In addition to the original Plasma and Microchip Fabrication kit, we now have kits on Robots and Civil Engineering. Initiatives for developing kits have come from a variety of sources. Professor Nicola Ferrier was the originator of the Robots kit and one of her staff helped create the manual used by the presenters. A group of students in my EPD 275 Technical Presentations class came up with idea for the Civil Engineering kit and one of them wrote the manual and edited the short videotape that accompanies the presentation.

The contents of the kits are subject to wear and tear over time. I have tried to purchase the most durable items available, but nothing lasts forever. Some props require regular maintenance and others need to be repaired or replaced.

      Presenters

All of the presenters are unpaid volunteers who do the outreach as an optional assignment for EPD 275 or ECE 350 Professional Expression. Their training consists of attending a live coaching session on how to use the materials in the kits or they may watch a videotape of the coaching session on reserve at Wendt Library. The coaching sessions last about an hour, depending on the topic.

We try to send presenters out in teams of two or three. The presentations last about 45 minutes to an hour and we usually schedule a team to do two school classes back to back.

      Manuals

Each presenter receives a written manual, which offers more information about how to do the presentation. The manuals do not provide a “script”; they give suggestions and offer a broad outline of what can be covered.

      Staff

The K-12 Outreach Program relies on unpaid volunteers to do presentations in area schools. Student provide their own transportation. This limits the time and distance traveled we can ask of presenters. We now schedule students to do no more than three presentations (three classes one after another will take three hours or more) and serve an area within 30 miles of the UW campus.

Scheduling and organization is done by myself as Coordinator, under a 25% appointment. I have one paid student working 3-5 hours per week to help with clerical tasks and to do repairs and maintenance of the kits. I hope to have another student working with me this semester to develop an advanced Robotics kit suitable for older children.

What Outreach Can Do

An Outreach program can have both lofty and pragmatic purposes.

Lofty Goals and Noble Missions_________________________

An outreach program promotes the University and the CoE. Having people who are directly involved in the creation of new technology puts a human face on the institution and makes it less remote.

 Changes are taking place so rapidly that it has become difficult to stay abreast of the latest inventions and theories. The outreach program can increase the children’s understanding of new technology, going beyond what is available in the classroom.

 There are those who feel that the University is an esoteric, elitist institution only vaguely connected to the way most people live. Outreach can bring the UW closer to schools/kids/teachers, becoming more accessible and more relevant.

Pragmatic Reasons for Doing Outreach__________________

An important outgrowth of the Progressive movement was the Wisconsin Idea. Operating under the theme, "The boundaries of the university campus are the boundaries of the state," it was an effort to bring together the resources of state government, the university, and citizens' groups to solve social, political, and economic problems.

Today, the Wisconsin Idea—that the University exists to serve the citizens of the state—has became a cornerstone of the UW philosophy. Its goal is to help all of us benefit directly from research done at the University—to share the knowledge gained in the classroom and laboratory with those who need it.

The K-12 Outreach Program is one way we can bring the incredible resources of the University of Wisconsin--Madison into schoolrooms. We can demonstrate some of the most recent developments in science and technology and help give children the information they will need to be intelligent and aware adults.

The cost of developing the kinds of presentations done in outreach—short, modular, focused on one small aspect of science or technology, using hands-on demos—is high, probably too high for one teacher or school to justify. It is far more economical for us to create a demonstration kit that can be shown in dozens of classrooms.

We also have the expertise in science and technology that teachers may lack. We can bring this expertise into the classroom to enhance the curriculum.

There are other ways in which outreach offers benefits to different groups of “customers”:

For the UW students, this is a chance to polish their presentation skills in front of a “real world” audience. Students gain enormously from having to analyze their audience and adjust their presentation accordingly. They also welcome this opportunity to talk to younger people about their studies and what they are learning at the University.

The school children get to experience hands-on demos in the classroom. They have an opportunity to interact with young adults who can act as role models, giving them information and advice about the value of studying science and math.

For area science teachers, the outreach program offers demonstrations and in-class discussions about the state of the art in technology that they might not otherwise be able to give their students.

For the UW and the College of Engineering, off-campus outreach offers good exposure and it can be part of a larger recruiting effort, especially if we want to attract a more diverse group of students to our campus.

What K-12 Outreach Can Do____________________________

Bringing something new and different into the classroom can make a difference. Among the responses we have gotten to our program have been comments from teachers like, “I didn’t know that they were actually using plasma to make things. I thought it was all theoretical. The kids and I got a kick out of learning how plasma is really used today” or “I’d never thought of civil engineering as a career. After the presentation all the kids wanted to talk about was how they were going to build things when they grow up.”

For outreach to make a difference, it must be in context; it must fit into the teaching curriculum and it means adjusting programs to reach many different levels of audiences. An outreach program that calls itself K-12 must be flexible enough to reach all grades and abilities. This means taking the time to prepare presenters: teaching people to reach different audiences is not something with which a lot of UW people have experience. Those of us who teach EPD275 and ECE350 (Steven Zwickel, Sandra Courter, Evelyn Malkus) consider this vital to the success of the program and we spend time in class talking about audience analysis.

A good outreach program must be hands-on and interactive to capture and hold the attention of the children. High-tech tools like video and computers should be used sparingly. A lot of what passes for educational video bores children. For computers to be useful they need to be reliable, there need to be enough machines for everyone, and the children must be given time to adjust and learn to use different machines.

What Outreach Can Not Do_____________________________

We should not let our enthusiasm for outreach obscure the fact that a visit to a classroom will not, by itself, increase recruiting or save a poorly-supported school curriculum.

What Outreach Should Not Do__________________________

A program that lacks focus or relies solely on good intentions can do more harm than good. We should do all we can to avoid offering meaningless, unfocussed demos that have nothing to do with what kids are studying in school, don’t respect differences in age and interest, and only serve to increase the perception that math and science are boring.

We should do thorough research into what is already available and avoid doing things that are already being done by others, including museums in other cities.

There are great benefits to using unpaid volunteers to reach organizational goals, but there are limits to what you can ask for in terms of time and commitment. We should not require students or faculty to work without offering compensation. Distance and time are issues when you are not paying people - travel time and inconvenience make a difference.

I have been impressed by the energy and enthusiasm of my students when asked to do outreach. I also know that the only way to ensure the quality of their presentations is to provide adequate training and opportunities for practice. No one should be asked to do outreach unless we can also offer them training and support.

Outreach off-campus and on

The K-12 Outreach Program is only one of several that originate within the College of Engineering. There are outreach programs on and off campus. Some are run by student organizations, such as SWE, others are programs for students visiting the UW-Madison campus, and there are also programs run by individual faculty members for a particular audience or organization.

There are differences between programs on campus and those that go out to their audiences:

On-Campus Outreach

Schoolchildren are brought to campus and given tours, exposed to labs and workshops, given demos, etc. On-campus outreach can be part of a larger field trip to campus and provided an excellent tool for recruiting students.

One big advantage of bringing the audience here is that we have all resources of UW at hand, including high-tech equipment and materials. Another advantage is that the outreach staff is on-site already.

A critical issue can be finding space on campus, but with advance planning, this problem can be solved. It is also important to consider how much time the children will have to spend on a bus to visit campus. Age and maturity will determine this.

On-campus outreach can reach as many kids as a bus can hold, or as many as school can afford to send, at one time.

Going Off Campus

These programs take the “stuff and staff” to where the children are. It is usually more efficient and less expensive to have one or two presenters on the road than to bus a class to campus.

Taking a presentation on the road means that it is possible to reach two or more classes at a time. It may even be possible to present to more than one grade or to an entire school.

This kind of presentation does add travel time for the staff, which makes it a bit less attractive to volunteers.

Scheduling of off-campus presentations is the same as for on-campus, except for the need to leave some allowance for time to transport presenters and kits to the site.

What the University and College Can Offer in Outreach

The Engineering Centers Building_______________________

This new site could provide space on campus for some kind of exhibition hall or museum. Some ideas for using this space are described in the next sections.

The UW and CoE as Resources__________________________

We have a lot to offer any outreach program. The University has money (from grants) and a knowledge base to draw on. There is expertise at hand: people who know technology and can help set up exhibits and demos. We can tap this expertise to develop either low- or high-tech exhibits.

The University can provide a pool of talented people who can develop exhibits, do presentations, train presenters, and write materials to accompany exhibits.

We teach presentation skills here and graduates of our EPD classes are knowledgeable about presenting technical information. We can, in fact, provide presenters to an outreach program and we can train people to be presenters.

We can build on what we already have going. Many UW groups and individuals are already doing outreach.

Possible Future Outreach Directions

Ideas for Future On campus Outreach__________________________
A. Fanciest— Science and Industry type museum with big, expensive exhibits
B. Science-technology Center: smaller, demonstrates basic engineering principles in hands-on displays (more and smaller modules to demo different kinds of engineering; Bill Nye- and Newton’s Apple- type demos; almost all hands-on)

C. Exhibition hall on engineering campus with static exhibits (Props and displays of technology—all behind glass; adds air of importance to building when people pass through, short videos play when buttons pushed)

Possible Configurations for Future Off-campus Outreach__________
D. Large-scale traveling show (Load up a semi with exhibits, travel all over upper midwest, set up in schools for day or truck could be exhibit site and kids could troop through, demos of high-tech stuff, unlimited size and weight

E. Smaller pro road show (Van with exhibits tours state, demonstrator sets up in schools, puts on shows for day or two, moves on to next town)

F. Small ad-hoc onroad show (what we have now)

For detailed descriptions of these ideas and other thoughts on STEM outreach programs, please contact me at ProfSBZ@gmail.com.

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Note: funding for the University of Wisconsin College of Engineering K–12 Outreach Program was cut in 2003 and the program no longer exists. 

SBZ 2010