Medical Technology: organ harvesting and Transplants

students to pursue engineering and technology careers.
Attracting students to engineering-related careers is
particularly challenging because engineering is not a subject
area typically addressed in K-12 curriculum.
The Nebraska Project
To address these critical shortages in engineering and
technology fields and to provide a means for K-12
teachers and students to become more informed about
engineering and technical careers, faculty from the
College of Engineering and Technology and the College
of Education and Human Sciences at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) collaborated to develop a teacher
professional development program aimed at middle and
high school math and science teachers. This collaboration
was actively supported by participating K-12 school districts
and the Nebraska Department of Education – Section
of Industrial, Manufacturing, and Engineering Systems.
Many universities, including the University of Nebraska-
Lincoln, conduct summer engineering camps for students.
However, we felt that the most strategic approach was to
impact teachers, who would, in turn, impact their students.
In recruiting teachers, we also developed critical alliances
with K-12 school administrators, furthering our long-term
goal of supporting and diversifying the K-12 pipeline into
engineering and technology.
The goals of the project were to introduce teachers to
the work of engineers and support them in using this
information and related resources in the development
and implementation of lesson plans in middle and high
school classrooms. The centerpiece of the program was
a Summer Institute, conducted over two separate weeks.
The first week was devoted to presentations by engineering
faculty focusing on how they approach and solve realworld
engineering problems. Over the course of the two
years of the project, teachers have had the opportunity to
learn about issues of traffic control and bridge and highway
design; environmental engineering, including issues of
water treatment, waste management, and impacts of
surface runoff and de-icing on transportation systems; and
designing safe barriers for use on NASCAR race tracks. The
presentations demonstrated research datasets, simulations,
and videos that teachers could integrate into their lesson
plans. Faculty in the UNL College of Engineering and
Technology have a large quantity of engineering-related
video demonstrating numerous science and math concepts
and principles, as well as the capacity to translate the
video into formats useful and pertinent to meet the needs
of middle- and high-school students in their math and
science education. Such interactive, simulation multimedia
demonstration modules support math and science concepts
Figure 1. Teacher participants at the UNL Crash Test Facility.
currently in the K-12 math and science curriculum. For
example, a web-based, multimedia resource unit would
allow all teachers to access NASCAR crash-testing video
and associated problems/answers to supplement units
on acceleration, speed, and impact. This computer-based
interactive program would allow users to manipulate
variables and observe the differing outcomes.
The Summer Institute also included industry field trips as
well as visits to the university’s engineering labs and facilities
(e.g., the University of Nebraska crash testing site; see Figure
1). These presentations and field trips were interspersed
with time for teachers to begin preparation of a lesson plan
integrating the engineering content and resources. This
introduction to specific engineering problems and research
was intended to provide teachers with real-world local,
state, and national examples that could be integrated into
their middle and high school math and science curricula.
During the Institute, both Engineering and Education
faculty, supported by graduate assistants, were available to
assist teachers. In the second year of the project, assistance
was also provided by peer teachers who had participated in
the Institute the previous year.
During the second week of the Institute, a major portion of
the time was devoted to teachers presenting their lessons
to the entire group, with their peer teachers as well as
15 • The Technology Teacher • April 2010