CU Student Introduces World of Engineering to Middle School Students

CU engineering student Melissa Straten says she was attracted to the field of engineering because it allows her to apply her background in geology to help solve problems in the environment. She plans to work as an environmental consultant after completing her master’s degree in civil engineering this year.

For seventh and eighth grade students at Angevine Middle School, Melissa is the embodiment of a career path most of them would have known little about, were it not for the National Science Foundation’s GK-12 Teaching Fellows program.

Melissa teaches in the Lafayette school 10 hours a week, earning a stipend along with her college tuition and health insurance. She is one of several CU engineering students working in local K-12 schools to stimulate interest in math, science, engineering, and technology. The teaching fellows are coordinated by the college’s Integrated Teaching and Learning Program, which is a national leader in K-12 engineering outreach.

“I may be their only experience with engineering,” Melissa says of her middle school students, whom she has been teaching for the last two years. “Since I’ve been there, they probably see engineering more as something they could choose to go into than before.”

Melissa says she has been able to bring a lot of environmental engineering into her middle school classes through lessons on cell structure, water quality, and bioremediation. Hands-on activities, such as taking water samples from a nearby lake and testing them for contaminants, are often part of her lessons.

“I like middle school--the students can do the science and engineering, but they’re not too cool for school,” says Melissa, who previously worked as a teaching assistant in Denver before starting her graduate program at CU.

Melissa is not the first in her family to get an engineering degree, so it’s not surprising that she followed a path similar to her father and older sister.  “You have to start early” to make sure students have the required math and science background so they can pursue engineering if they choose, she says.

With that in mind, the ITL Program has played a leading role in developing a digital library of standards-based, hands-on engineering curricula for students starting in the upper elementary grades.  The library extends the impact the teaching fellows are having in local schools by building an extensive resource of engineering curricula that can be used by teachers nationwide.

With her middle school teaching experience, Melissa also has helped to write some of the online curricula available at www.TeachEngineering.com. “Someday, I’d like to try to bring my interest in education back into my career,” she says.

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