Engineering Design and Manufacturing Education through Research Experience for High School Teachers

Manufacturing educational programs historically have been limited to higher education institutions. Starting in 2013, however, Texas House Bill 5, a new Foundation High School Program, was established with an increasing requirement on the design and manufacturing. Most of the new requirements is outlined in the Career and Technical Education (CTE) section of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Standard. This in turn necessitates more training for high school teachers who are in great need of learning the state-of-the-art design and manufacturing technology. In 2016, Lamar University (LU) at Beaumont, Texas was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Teachers (RET) site grant titled "RET Site: Incorporating Engineering Design and Manufacturing into High School Curriculum." The goal of the project is to host 12 high school teachers each summer to participate in engineering design and manufacturing research and then transfer their experience into high school curriculum. During the 2017 summer program, 12 high school teachers participated in the research and education program at LU. In the six weeks' program, six LU engineering professors, each of them mentored two teachers. Besides mentoring research, each professor provides week-long morning workshops. The subjects of these workshops include 3D geometry modeling, finite element stress/thermal/vibration analysis, LED manufacturing, subtractive and additive manufacturing, alternative and renewable energy, and advanced mechanical systems. The teachers are in the process of transferring their new knowledge in design and manufacturing into high school curriculum. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 46th SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference.