Introducing engineering and design to homeschooled middle and high school students

Abstract

In this thesis, the researcher organized and taught an introduction to engineering and design course to her local middle and high schools. Inspired by an industry experience and MIT resources, she developed a curriculum that incorporated interactive activities and culminated into a design challenge for these homeschooled students. She surveyed their interests in and perceptions of engineering and design before and after this introductory course, and the students were 81% percent more interested in engineering and 80% in design after having taken the course. Both student and parent feedback, formally through surveys or informally through conversations, shared about the positive influence this course has had on bringing exposure of engineering and design to the students. This program achieved the researcher's goal of exciting students to consider pursuing engineering and design. The researcher hopes to continue this program in the future with some revisions like cutting back some taught material to allow for more build time or developing a separate more specific and advanced engineering course for students already interested in engineering.