The goals of this ten-week summer REU Site at the University of Colorado Boulder and supported by the Division of Engineering Education and Centers, are to provide undergraduate students with the opportunity to conduct research in the area of Environmental Sustainability, emphasizing multimedia approaches (air, water, soil), while training them in experimental design, data collection, and data interpretation. A seminar series will foster group discussions of societal issues in Environmental Sustainability, ethics, and policy. Students will also participate in tours of local research facilities (like NREL, NOAA, NIST, USGS). Students will be recruited from disciplines inside and outside engineering and at least fifty percent of the participants will be from colleges and universities where research opportunities in STEM are limited. Participants will experience gains in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and identity that will foster their success in future research and/or professional settings.
The intellectual merit of this project lies in the proposed activities, which will advance knowledge and understanding across different fields related to Environmental Sustainability with projects ranging from innovative water treatment using UV light, to evaluating emission consequences of shale gas production in the Rocky Mountain Region. The research team has the experience and creativity to pursue the proposed projects and to involve undergraduate students in meaningful ways in this endeavor. The proposed organization and activities have been informed by the successful practices of prior local REU sites as well as others. Research resources include recently expanded laboratory facilities in the Environmental Sustainability Center and a supportive research environment at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The broader impacts of this project include leveraging ties to the highly successful Colorado Diversity Initiative and the Minority Engineering Program network to reach underserved populations. This program will encourage diverse group of students (women, underrepresented minorities, and students at universities with low research activity) to pursue advanced degrees in environmental engineering and related disciplines. These students will also develop skills and knowledge of benefit in their undergraduate studies and future careers. Student and faculty participants will actively collaborate across disciplines and graduate students will engage in the training of undergraduate researchers.
