Access to education in engineering in K-12 schools is often reflective of one’s socioeconomic status. The Kappa Psi Chapter at the University of California, San Diego teamed up with San Diego Unified School District and took note of this issue. With the help of an EPICS in IEEE grant of $2,670.00, the HKN chapter sought to provide support to local residents in San Diego. Twenty-five university students took part in this project, with the help of five non-student IEEE volunteers to make it come together.
Kappa Psi’s project is working to bridge the STEM education gap by traveling to schools near the university and teaching project-based lessons in mechanical, aerospace, electrical and computer engineering, and computer science. “Our hope with outreach is that we are able to encourage students to pursue higher education and allow them to explore their capabilities within STEM fields, ” said Katherine Vu, Outreach Co-VP. “We look forward to continuing outreach in this upcoming school year, and expanding our program. Specifically, we are gearing our attention towards incorporating teaching pedagogy in our lessons, in order to increase student engagement and retention.”
EPICS in IEEE (Fischer-Mertel Community of Projects) granted this team $2,670.00 to complete this project.
To learn more about this project, check out the article in the HKN Bridge: https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/bridge_issue3_2023/index.php#/p/32