GK-12 Sensors! in Secondary Schools
University of Maine
Promising Approaches
- (3) Design and implement programs that provide students with the
opportunity to apply what they learn through performing community service that
is linked to the formal curriculum and classroom instruction.
- (4) Encourage and support activities and student and community
organizations that provide opportunities for students to be engaged in their
campuses and communities.
- (8) Involve students in the development and sustaining of
campus/community partnerships.
Overview
Objectives:
Increase the number of Maine
students aspiring to careers in high technology by providing graduate fellow
mentors to high and middle schools;
- Create
partnerships with local schools and communities around innovative programs in
science and engineering;
- Stimulate
new technology businesses connected to cutting edge sensor science, spatial
information, and engineering.
- Coordinate
with rural, suburban and urban Maine
teachers participating in a related NSF program that trains them to use sensors
to increase student awareness of science and engineering careers.
- Involve
middle and high school students in the science, mathematics and engineering of
a high profile emerging technology such as sensors in order to encourage them to follow
career paths in engineering and science.
Since 2002, this NSF-supported program at The University
of Maine has enabled graduate fellows in Engineering, Chemistry, Biology, and
Physics to partner with more than a dozen Maine high-and middle schools on a variety
of projects that use the sensor technologies available at the University to
engage students in fun and meaningful projects. For example, two fellows from the University taught Bangor High students
how to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems
(GPS) to create emergency response maps for Bangor. Another fellow worked with middle
school students in Hermon on programming robots to extend their sensing capacities.
Special Features
Civic Learning Goals
- Civic knowledge: Both graduate fellows and
secondary students identify, define, and describe local problems and their
connections to problems on the state and national levels (particularly issues
in building and sustaining a technologically sophisticated citizenry and
workforce). Both groups discuss and
explore how individuals confident in science and engineering concepts can
effect change in how people live and work.
- Civic skills: Secondary students learn to work
cooperatively with others, build rapport, effectively advocate for their points
of view, and become more aware of how citizens effect change and groups can
gain expertise and overcome problems. The graduate fellows learn how to organize effective activities,
facilitate team building, and use their technical, critical thinking, and
communication skills to further the secondary students’ learning and engagement
with their learning and service.
- Civic attitudes: Participants develop confidence
in their scientific and technical abilities and abilities to effect change
through collaborative work. They learn
they can make a difference and see themselves as productive contributing
members of the Maine
community.
Contact Information
John F. Vetelino, Principal Investigator
Constance Holden and Stephen Godsoe, Co-Principal Investigators
c/o Susan Niles
5708 Barrows Hall
The University of Maine
Orono ME 04469-5708
207-581-2224
susan@eece.maine.edu
http://www.eece.maine.edu/research/gk12/hme.htm
