RET Site: PLACE- Promoting Learning About Computational tools and the Environment

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This Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering and Computer Science Site at Michigan Technological University (MTU) will focus on the application of computational tools for researching environmental engineering systems, an area of research and teaching emphasis at MTU. The research experiences will build on collaborative, well-established, and broad based multidisciplinary research activities at MTU. Teachers will gain an understanding of how to apply state of the art computational tools to research environmental systems and how to solve environmental problems. The tools and research projects have relevant applications in high school science (earth sciences, biology, chemistry, physics), math, and social studies. Through this RET Site teachers and their students would be provided an understanding of the discipline of environmental engineering and the research process, which is a field that requires growth and growing interest from future practitioners. This is especially societally relevant as 3 of the 14 grand challenges for engineering (National Academy of Engineering, 2015) directly relate to the field of environmental engineering.This RET Site will offer an intensive six week summer research program for a total of 30 rural secondary STEM teachers over three years from school districts in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, several which include significant numbers of Native American students. The proposed activities for each cohort of teachers consist of: 1) participation of RET and PhD students in a 6-week pre-research experience institute. Teachers participating via teleconference will be introduced to the goals of the RET program, provided with background on research projects, and asked to share their experience about research, inquiry-based teaching, and learning. PhD student mentors will be introduced to secondary school teaching environment and standards, inquiry-based teaching, and mentoring skills based on the Wisconsin Mentoring Seminar; 2) participation in a 6-week summer program at MTU where teachers and PhD mentors work on research projects culminating in final poster presentations; and 3) participation, during the academic year following the summer research program, in developing, implementing, and disseminating curricular materials in collaboration with PhD students and senior personnel with experience in lesson plan development. The project will achieve the following objectives: (a) secondary school teachers will: gain an understanding of the discipline of environmental engineering and the research process; learn new computational tools that they can use with their students and; gain confidence in teaching about research and science (b) secondary school students will: gain awareness of the discipline of environmental engineering; gain an understanding of how models and other computational tools are used in engineering and science and; broaden their interest in STEM careers; (c) PhD students will: deepen their understanding of research design through teaching that skill to others; gain an understanding of how to translate research to science teaching and communication and; gain experience in mentoring and team building..