Effective Engineering Outreach through an Undergraduate Mentoring Team and Module Database

Abstract

The rising need for engineers has led to increased interest in community outreach in engineering departments nationwide. We present a sustainable outreach model involving trained undergraduate mentors to build ties with K-12 teachers and students. An associated online module database of chemical engineering demonstrations, available to educators nationwide, has also been developed. As a result, we have increased our department’s reach from about 30 K-12 students per year to approximately 3,000 students per year.