2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Quality education is key to improving lives and advancing society [1]. Yet, equitable education remains a challenge worldwide, particularly among girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) [2]. As the demand for biomedical professionals mounts, so does the urgency for diversifying and preparing the next generation of the STEM workforce to be critical problem-solvers within a modern era.

We created a sustainable educational program in 2014 to address a lack of access to quality K-12 engineering education to empower secondary school-aged students to explore engineering design concepts. Our program aims to cultivate the next generation of innovators by offering hands-on biomedical engineering opportunities to humanize problem-solving, build resilience, and bolster a student’s ties to their community.

We utilize near-peer teaching, pairing undergraduate students (“Trainers”) with middle and high school students (“Learners” and “Makers”, respectively) to guide them through an engineering design project that advances local concerns related to UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: Good Health and Well-being in the context of biomedical engineering. Guided by PjBL, students work on projects rooted in local, community-based health problems using the human-centered design process. Both the Learners and Makers courses followed a parallel scaffolded design process where Learners’ problem space is confined to learning about heart and lung diseases in the community and, in return, designing low-cost, Arduino-based pulse oximeters, and Makers source their own projects, which in the past have included a custom knee brace for osteoarthritis, a bike appropriate attachment for chemo-induced pediatric neuropathy, and a portable second-hand smoke detector.

Trainers work with both Learners and Makers to empathize with challenges by learning about local needs according to community reports and researching current solutions and their limitations. Next, participants ideate or brainstorm possible solutions through open inquiry. Prototypes undergo testing methods to determine if the solutions meet the design specifications. Finally, participants participate in a Design Day symposium where middle school students present research posters and high school students present oral presentations.

We studied the effect of Ignite on both participants (Learners and Makers) and mentors (Trainers) through survey data collected between 2021 and 2024 to assess the impact of our program on Learners (n=53), Makers (n=22), and Trainers (n=21). Attitudes toward STEM, self-reported resilience, and engaging identity were assessed before and after participation using previously validated metrics [3-6] according to IRB-approved protocol number 0087. All analyses were conducted in JMP comparing pre- and post-surveys via paired t-tests.

After completing the program, Learners and Makers reported a significant increase in their attitudes toward STEM in their post-survey compared to their pre-survey (p=0.0005, n=56). Learners and Makers also experienced a significant increase in resilience (p=0.016, n=56). Among high school Makers and undergraduate Trainers, there was a significant increase in students’ confidence related to identifying, developing, and testing a design (p=<0.0001, n=40). Female and underrepresented gender groups represented a majority of students across each group (64%, 82%, and 91% for Learners, Makers, and Trainers respectively). Specifically, these middle and high school participants experienced a significant increase in their self-perceived engineering identity following their participation (p=0.0374, n=39).

Based on constructivist and resilience theory, our program increases students’ attitudes toward STEM, resilience, and confidence after working through the design process to solve problems relevant to their community, related to biomedical engineering. The positive outcomes indicate that future studies should explore the program’s longitudinal impact on returning students’ education and career readiness and aspirations, furthering the program’s long-term goal to empower upward mobility across participants and mentors.