2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper describes the impact of one student’s experiences in a summer 2023 STEMcx Environmental Justice internship on their perceptions on environmental science and engineering through a reflexive thematic analysis of a semi-structured interview collected after the internship was completed. This summer internship was designed for high-school juniors and seniors in the Baltimore, MD area through STEMcx. The goal of STEMcx is to expand the number of African-Americans in science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and technology (STEM) careers. The STEMcx Environmental Justice Internship is an 8-week experience that includes: independent research involving field measurements of particulate matter air pollution, career exploration, field trips and site visits, and a week-long college tour to the North Carolina Research Triangle area. The objective of the research described in this paper is to describe the impact of the Environmental Justice Internship on the ways this student perceives the trajectory towards environmental engineering careers. This inquiry is guided by this broad research question: “How does participation in engineering experiences outside of the classroom contribute to the ways students construct early engineering career trajectories?” This research is conceptualized as a qualitative study, grounded in a constructivist theoretical framework. We analyze the data we collected utilizing reflexive thematic analysis methodology. By carefully exploring the ways that this participant describes their experiences in this internship—including their judgments, actions, challenges, obstacles, and accomplishments—we will provide insight into the role of out-of-school experiences in students’ entry to environmental science and engineering.