School of Engineering Vanderbilt University

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K-12 Outreach Program

RET: For the Teacher
For more information and applications, click here.

For the past four summers, VUSE has hosted the Vanderbilt University Bioengineering Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program, for which I serve as principal investigator. This six-week-long program serves 11 to 16 high school teachers each summer from Middle Tennessee. It seeks to give teachers a broad overview of bioengineering, engage the teachers in meaningful research experiences, and help them take their research experiences back to their high-school science classrooms.

Professors from across VUSE and Vanderbilt University Medical Center participate in the program by hosting the teachers in their labs for 23 days, providing them with a research project to complete during that time, along with the support and guidance to do so. This past summer 10 professors served as mentors for projects ranging from assessing the effects of the heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) on wound healing to photosystem I extraction from spinach leaves and its use in providing electrical power. Many of the teachers end up with bioengineering research results that are published with their professor mentors in peer-reviewed engineering journals.