2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Broadening participation in the skilled technical workforce remains a national priority as the demand for engineers continues to grow alongside the need to reflect the diversity of the nation’s population. In rural Appalachian communities, improving educational access and workforce preparation is especially critical. Students in these regions face unique barriers to higher education and engineering career pathways. The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has emphasized investments in preK–12 education, youth engagement, and workforce development as essential strategies for regional economic resilience and for broadening students’ understanding of what engineering is and who can do it.
School-university partnerships focused on engineering integration in teachers' classrooms have been formed to address these needs and leverage the strategies supported by the ARC. The beginning phases of this project included a needs assessment and a 2-day summer professional development workshop with 16 teachers in the region. Building on these prior efforts, the current phase of this project focuses on strengthening partnerships with schools through co-design and delivery of teacher PD tailored to regional industry needs. Building on prior efforts to engage rural educators in engineering integration, the current phase of this project focuses on strengthening school–university partnerships through the co-design and delivery of teacher professional development tailored to regional industry needs.
In 2025, the project team launched the second iteration of its teacher professional development workshop, redesigned to align more closely with the manufacturing and workforce priorities of the region surrounding the university. This new version was informed by findings from the first workshop’s evaluation and by continued dialogue with teachers, regional employers, and university partners. The workshop brought together a new cohort of 17 teachers representing 5 school systems who teach a variety of different subjects (e.g., science, CTE, Spanish) and emphasized connections between classroom learning and local engineering careers.
The two-day workshop, which took place on the university’s main campus, integrated themes of systems thinking, advanced manufacturing, data science, and artificial intelligence through hands-on, transferable classroom activities. For example, teachers explored concepts such as computational fluid mechanics, AI for curriculum design, and 3D printing methodologies. Faculty and students from various engineering departments and local industry professionals contributed to the sessions, creating opportunities for teachers to connect technical content to regional workforce needs.
This iteration also strengthened the foundation for sustained collaboration between teachers and the university. The project broadened its network of educators and industry mentors, introducing peer mentorship opportunities that enabled returning participants to guide and inspire teachers in the new cohort. These layered partnerships are helping to build ongoing momentum by enhancing teachers’ capacity to integrate engineering and manufacturing concepts into their classrooms, broadening rural students’ perceptions of what engineering is and who can pursue it. The poster will outline this current phase of the project, highlighting the details of how feedback from the first workshop informed the development of the second workshop, as well as the partnerships with the second cohort of teachers during the 2025-2026 academic year.