This award provides funding to the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), RET Site: Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E3) for Teachers Summer Research Program, under the direction of Robin L. Autenrieth. The funding will pay travel expenses for a team of three site members to participate in the 2010 Teacher Research Experience (TRE) Conference, to be held at Inner Harbor, Maryland on October 21-24, 2010. This conference is being sponsored by NOAA, NSF, Department of Energy, Department of Education, Columbia University and COSEE. Eight NSF RET in Engineering Site Programs have been invited to participate in this multi-agency conference.
The goal of the TRE Conference is to engage the teacher research experience program community by: 1) identifying operational and evaluation best practices, 2) establishing connections and partnerships between programs, and 3) collaborating to meet individual project challenges. The main conference themes are: 1) Evaluation; 2) Sustainability; and 3) Transfer.
(Oct 22-24, 2010) in National Harbor, MD. The conference was an inter?agency endeavor in support teacher research experience programs with federal support. Forty TRE programs from around the Nation attended and each program was asked to bring a teacher, a scientist/engineer, and a program manager. The TRE conference goal was to support and engage the TRE community by a) Identifying operational and evaluation best practices, b) Establishing connections and partnerships between programs, and c) Collaborating to meet individual project challenges. One of attending TRE programs was from Texas A&M University: Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E3) Teacher Program. As project awardee, the E3 program sent three representatives to participate in the conference: (1) an E3 high school math teacher, (2) an E3 engineer (faculty mentor), and (3) an E3 program manager. Conference roundtable discussions and panel sessions provided opportunities for sharing of "best practices" and "lessons learned" with representatives from other TRE programs. Participation in this conference has enabled the E3 program to disseminate "best practices" and "lessons learned" from our program. The E3 program has been able to impact over 100 high school STEM teachers, bringing an awareness of engineering and how their fundamental courses can step their students toward an engineering career. Most of these teachers come from high schools that have high-minority student populations. Further, numerous Texas A&M University faculty and their graduate students have learned how to better communicate their research to a broader audience and influence public education.
