RET Site: The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) RET Site on Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure for Urban Communities

This Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) project will advance knowledge within and across engineering disciplines, physics, education/assessment, and unique challenges of sustainable and resilient urban infrastructure, by finding solutions for critical issues. This is important with the deteriorating infrastructure, its widespread failures and extensive human, economic and societal effects, increased worldwide occurrence of hazards, and the critical need for economic and environmental conservation in urban settings, such as in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) Metroplex with a population of seven million.

Teachers will be immersed in hands on cutting-edge research under expert mentoring and intellectual collaboration, designed to broaden their educational experience and student learning. Addressing original research questions for each project will enable teachers to find transformative solutions with potential for practical applications. Teachers will be engaged in research activities and provided with financial, mentoring, and other supports to transfer the research into their school curricula.

They will integrate engineering topics and innovatively address state education standards. Significant student fractions in the target school districts are underrepresented minorities, economically disadvantaged or at risk of dropping out. Allowing teachers to tailor curricular modules in STEM courses related to solutions of real-world engineering problems will improve student engagement.

Further, teachers will employ universal design for learning in their teaching and assessment, improving education opportunities for all students. Increased student engagement in STEM courses and exposure to practical applications is expected to increase student interest in engineering education and careers. The societal benefits of sustainable and resilient infrastructure will enhance this impact, considering the nation’s failing infrastructure and recent challenges in extreme events.

The project will enhance long-term collaboration among pre- and in-service teachers, university faculty/students and industrial/academic mentors. Strong societal impacts from improved public safety, health, and welfare, through investigating and devising solutions to challenges of urban infrastructure are expected.

This is a new RET Site with seven participating school districts, as follows: Arlington, Duncanville, Everman, Grand Prairie, Irving, Kennedale, and Mansfield, all in the DFW metroplex. The main and sub-fields of the research are infrastructure sustainability and resiliency, engineering (civil, industrial, electrical); science (physics), education and assessment.

The project involves participation of 12 high school level STEM teachers in the summer RET Site. Teachers will actively participate in six summer projects over six weeks each summer. The RET Site is designed to improve: (1) teachers’ ability to include engineering topics into their course modules; (2) high school students’ perceptions of and interest in STEM majors and careers; and (3) high school student engagement.

The project will provide pre-service and in-service high school teachers, primarily from inner city and other high-needs schools, with stipends/support for engagement in research with faculty/students, industrial/academic advisors and prior RET teachers. Summer activities include curricular module development, workshops, webinars, mentoring and site visits.

Follow-up during the academic year includes a workshop to share developed modules with non-RET teachers, classroom visitations, evaluation, and dissemination. The teachers will be tracked for five years post the RET program. An external evaluator will perform formative/summative process and outcome evaluations.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.