Welcome to TEK8.

Translating Engineering Research to K8 (TEK8) is an outreach collaboration between the Colleges of Engineering and Education and Human Ecology. The program communicates the broader impacts of federally funded engineering research while increasing urban middle school students’ interest in engineering and preparing practicing teachers and engineering students to introduce middle school students to the engineering design process. An end product of TEK8 are project-based lessons around engineering design challenges created by engineering students and teachers. The design challenges have been tested in an after-school setting and expose students to the essence of engineering: design and problem solving.

Each design challenge has a number of items to assist teachers and volunteers in implementing the challenge in schools or other settings. There is an instructors handout that guides the instructor in preparing to
deliver the design challenge and a student handout to provided needed background to the students. A video describes the research being being done on campus that was the starting point for the design challenge. A second design challenge video provides an introduction to the design challenge either for the instructor or the students. For many of the design challenges there is also a presentation to introduce the challenge to students. The course has evolved over time and the first year has fewer materials.