Buckeye engineers bring passion for STEM to middle school classroom

An outreach program at The Ohio State University is helping Buckeye engineers inspire the next generation of problem solvers.

Translating Engineering Research to K8 (TEK8) is a unique research and outreach collaboration between the College of Engineering, the College of Education and Human Ecology and Metro Early College Middle School in Columbus. It aims to improve engineering career awareness among middle school students by exposing them to the engineering design process in a hands-on way.

Now in its 11th year, TEK8 has enabled more than a thousand pre-teens to experience how fun and exciting engineering can be, but its impact extends well beyond the middle school classroom.

“It benefits our students every bit as much,” said Howard Greene, director of K-12 outreach for the College of Engineering, who helped design and launch the program. “They learn how to be ambassadors and communicators of what they've done—something that's highly technical—and learn how to relate it to a middle school student in an engaging way. That's difficult and it really helps them in any other environment they may be in, where they have to relate something to someone who doesn't have the same background or interest level.”

TEK8 begins in the summer, with approximately 15 Ohio State undergraduate students completing a paid research internship in engineering faculty laboratories. Then in autumn, the undergrads are joined by engineering education graduate students to develop age-appropriate design challenges that exemplify the societal significance of the research. Those design challenges are then shared with approximately 120 sixth grade students at Metro over the course of six weeks.

“For the sixth graders at Metro, TEK8 provides an opportunity to see how engineering research is tackling issues that matter to them, such as cancer, habitat conservation and climate change, a chance to meet a diverse group of engineers and see themselves in an engineering career, and a chance to adopt a flexible problem-solving mindset,” said Stephen Westwood, who teaches the sixth grade STEM foundations class at Metro.

A unique feature of TEK8, compared to other design challenge outreach programs, is the research component, according to Greene.

“Undergraduate research experience for students is an important part of their education, but then the design challenges will spring out of those research experiences,” he said. “It kind of makes an almost inexhaustible supply of design challenges because every research lab and research experience is different.”

For engineering students who are interested in research, STEM outreach and education, TEK8 checks all the boxes. Engineering education graduate student Winnie Opoku opted to get involved because it aligned with her passion for promoting STEM education and bridging the gap between academia and the community.

“The biggest takeaway from the experience was the importance of hands-on, project-based learning in promoting interest and engagement in STEM education,” said Opoku. “TEK8 provided a unique opportunity to demonstrate the practical application of engineering concepts in real-world settings, and it was rewarding to see the positive impact that this approach had on the middle school students' interest in engineering.”

After the design challenges are tested in the classroom, TEK8 course instructors from engineering and the College of Education and Human Ecology post the challenges online for the benefit of teachers and informal STEM educators—further extending the impact of the program. Each challenge has a number of materials available to assist teachers and volunteers in implementing the challenge in schools or other settings.

“The collaboration between the Colleges of Engineering and Education and Human Ecology highlights the value of interdisciplinary approaches in promoting engineering, and overall STEM education” said Opoku. “This collaboration provides a model that other colleges, departments and individuals can employ to serve their specific purposes.”

by Meggie Biss, College of Engineering Communications | biss.11@osu.edu