Integrative Graduate
Education and
Research Traineeship

Highlight

The Grid and Sustainable Energy in the Classroom

IGERT students at Explore UT

Projects:

IGERT: Sustainable Grid Integration of Distributed and...

Institution:

University of Texas at Austin

Primary Strategic Goal:

Learning: Build the Nation's research capability through critical investments in advanced instrumentation, facilities, cyber infrastructure, and experimental tools.

Secondary Strategic Goal:

Discovery: Foster research that will advance the frontiers of knowledge, emphasizing areas of greatest opportunity and potential benefit and establishing the Nation as a global leader in fundamental transformational science and engineering.

Achievement/Results

The IGERT program has embarked on a sustaining partnership with the NSF funded University of Texas at Austin UTEACH Engineering. UTeachEngineering prepares undergraduates, degree-holders, and in-service educators to teach innovative and exciting curricula that will allow their students to discover what engineering is, what engineers do, and the role that engineering plays in shaping their world. The UteachEngineering directors requested that IGERT develop mini-modules for use in high school-level classrooms that concentrates students’ investigation of the Grid and sustainable energy. Meeting for approximately six weeks, a subgroup of IGERT students developed six mini-modules that can be used as stand-alone demonstrations or as a week-long unit about the grid and sustainable energy. The proposed modules include: an introduction to the grid, modeling solar generation in a home and grid integration.

Address Goals

The partnership between UT IGERT and UTEACH Engineering reflects a relationship that fosters cooperation between NSF funded programs. This collaboration provides IGERT students an opportunity to design laboratory experiences for students in the public schools. The UTEACH Engineering is the vehicle for delivering the engineer-based experiences to teachers and supporting their work in providng their students access to university-level engineering experiences that expands the high school students’ knowledge and exposure to engineering.