High school teacher development workshops that create long-term student impact

Increasing the number of STEM graduates is critical to our nation's future. High school teachers play an essential role in accomplishing this goal by preparing and encouraging students to pursue STEM fields in college. This paper describes a series of workshops, referred to as TechSTEP, that focus on equipping teachers with tools, techniques, and skills they can immediately implement in their classrooms so as to better prepare students to successfully pursue STEM degrees. The specific workshop described in this paper involves building prototype fuel cell vehicles. In addition to the science of fuel cells and the engineering involved in vehicle design, the project also incorporates a model for natural resource depletion and includes other related economic, environmental, social, and political issues. The ultimate goal of TechSTEP is to increase the number of students successfully pursuing STEM degrees at the university. Even though TechSTEP includes high school students, the primary focus is on high school teachers. We believe long-term impact is more likely to result from the interactions and relationships developed with these teachers. On average, there has been a 39% increase in the number of students enrolling in STEM majors at Louisiana Tech University from schools participating in TechSTEP.