(539b) K-12 Outreach: An Emphasis on Communication

The new ABET student outcomes now include an ability to communicate with a range of audiences. It has been standard practice that throughout our curriculum, our students primarily practice their communication skills with their peers, faculty members and professional engineers. The attainment of the new outcomes will better prepare our graduates for professional practice when they will be required to communicate with a non-technical audience. Our K-12 outreach project, which is a required part of several of our core courses, allows our students the opportunity to teach technical information to a non-technical audience and determine the effectiveness of their presentation. Details of the outreach project, including K-12 logistics will be shared during this presentation - as well as, examples of hands-on activities, demonstrations, assessment and some of our student misconceptions which have been uncovered.