Alabama Teachers Join Engineering Research Labs

This summer Dr. Todd Freeborn (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Dr. Chris Crawford (Department of Computer Science) launched an NSF-supported Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) site at the University of Alabama.

This site, Engaging  and Training Alabama STEM Teachers in Sensing Technologies, has brought 11 Alabama middle and high school teachers to campus for June and July to engage in 7-weeks of research under the mentorship of faculty from the College of Engineering.  This years group of teachers are from schools in the Tuscaloosa City, Tuscaloosa County, Greene County, and Hale County districts.

The goal of the program is to get teachers hands-on experience with engineering research that they can take back into their classrooms to use in their lessons and teaching.  All research projects that the teachers will support use sensing and measurement technologies to explore physiological and environmental monitoring. This common theme on sensing is based on the fact that knowing how to measure and analyze physical features of materials, devices, tissues, and/or the environment underlies many engineering research questions.

Beyond their research, teachers are participating in weekly workshops to learn more about engineering careers, sensors/programming, and receive support to translate these experiences into curriculum for their classrooms.  The program will wrap up on July 25, 2024 when all participants present their summer research results at a Summer Research Symposium hosted in Shelby Hall.