2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Providing access to high quality STEM educational opportunities in rural communities is a significant challenge that will require multiple stakeholders to address. This paper will discuss the development and implementation of a community-based engineering design program for rural middle school students (grades 6-8), highlighting student outcomes and lessons learned as the project team worked to build collaborative partnerships to bolster students’ STEM content knowledge and interest in STEM careers. This work is part of a National Science Foundation Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project that was designed to provide students with authentic, real-world STEM experiences in engineering design and advanced manufacturing. In this project, the NC State University Colleges of Engineering and Education collaborated with two middle schools in a rural school district in NC, local advanced manufacturing companies, and a regional educational advocacy organization to co-develop the STEM program. As a part of the program, students participated in a 3-part, grade level-specific STEM elective course in advanced manufacturing, received mentoring from undergraduate engineering students, and had the opportunity to engage in supplemental STEM enrichment activities outside the classroom.

More than 650 students across both schools have participated in at least one year of the STEM program over the last five years. This paper will describe the impact of the program on students’ science content knowledge and STEM career interest, as measured by proficiency scores on end-of-grade (EOG) science tests and S-STEM student survey data, respectively. According to results of an ordinal regression analysis, the number of years spent in the STEM program had a significant impact on students’ science content knowledge. It was found that students who participated in one year or more of the program had an increased chance of scoring higher on the science EOG in the 8th grade regardless of their score at the onset of the program. Additionally, analysis of S-STEM survey data indicated that program participants had a strong interest in engineering and chemistry, with 61% of students expressing an interest in engineering and 58% in chemistry.

Fundamentally, this project was built on collaborative partnerships. We found that prioritizing mutual respect and acknowledging each partner’s strengths were essential to building lasting, effective partnerships. Valuing the contributions of each partner is particularly important when working with rural communities who are often viewed from a deficit lens as it relates to educational opportunities. Through this collaborative effort, we were able to equip rural students with the skills required to enter the engineering pipeline, thus meeting workforce identified needs of community partners and solidifying enduring partnerships. In this paper, we will detail our approach to cultivating these essential relationships and the subsequent challenges and opportunities that emerged throughout the process. This work has implications for community-engaged researchers who work in rural communities, offering a framework for building sustainable partnerships that lead to positive student outcomes.