2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

To meet the complex challenges of the future, there needs to be an increase in the number of students pursuing STEM and engineering. To grow those numbers, students must have an understanding and interest in engineering in order to pursue it as a career option. However, literature has shown that children hold misconceptions about the engineering profession, which can deter potential future engineers from the field. This underscores the importance of introducing engineering concepts at a young age. Over the past ten years, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have been integrated into state school curricula, increasing the emphasis on engineering in K-12. Although the NGSS helps introduce engineering at a young age, it can be difficult for teachers to incorporate engineering into their lessons without the required background knowledge. To help mitigate this challenge, a community engagement project was created, bridging a university with a local school district to help fourth-grade teachers incorporate engineering lessons into their classrooms. Engineering and education majors co-taught lessons to fourth-grade students about engineering, wind energy, and the engineering design process. The fourth-grade students applied the engineering design process to build model wind turbines showcased at a celebration event. This study seeks to understand fourth-grade students’ perceptions of an engineer before and after participating in this project. Students completed a pre- and post-intervention assessment where they needed to answer the question, “What is an engineer?” Utilizing a constructivist approach, we examined students' knowledge development based on their lived experiences. Our analysis compares pre- and post-intervention responses, considering their experiences within the context of the community-engaged project. We found that students described engineering differently between the pre- and post-intervention responses, and they described engineers with more words related to the engineering design process. This helps us understand the impacts of the community-engaged project on students’ perceptions of engineering, which can help inform future educational initiatives that may enhance engineering literacy among K-12 students.