Explorations: Experiential Learning Opportunities in Mechatronics in Toledo, Ohio

University Of Toledo, Toledo OH

Investigators

Abstract

This three-year Explorations project engages approximately 150 high school students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in experiential opportunities to learn about electric vehicles with the larger aim of revitalizing the advanced manufacturing workforce in Northwest Ohio. This collaborative effort at revitalization also addresses barriers that underrepresented youth face when attempting to access STEM workforce training and career entry. Project partners include the University of Toledo, Toledo Public Schools, Owens Community College, and Dana Incorporated. High school students begin learning about electronic vehicles through an after-school experiential Mechatronics Club at Toledo High Schools. To develop students’ skills, each participant receives an industry-standard Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and free software. Through a comprehensive series of hybrid, gaming-centered, and experiential activities, youth become able to apply their skills in the context of an annual team-based competition. Industry partner Dana provides mechatronics club members with mentoring by its engineers focused on career readiness and life skills, while providing exposure to professional and skilled trade employment opportunities at its technology centers and manufacturing facilities. The project’s goal is to equip youth with the interests, confidence and skills needed to pursue various career on-ramps, including immediate employment as PLC technicians, or additional formal education via scholarships offered by the partnering two- and four-year institutions. Hybrid options are also available. For example, students who enroll at the community college can earn stackable mechatronics certificates while working part-time in the industry and earn an associate degree by combining three stackable certificates. To achieve its potential for broader impacts, all education materials will be housed at Hybridplc.org underscoring the hybrid learning model. Tutorial videos, textbooks, lab manuals, codes, models, and exercises provide the learners, in a flipped classroom, with a series of basic and advanced competencies. The project contributes to the literature on workforce training and engineering education by employing a rigorous evaluation of the project activities including attention to its recruitment and retention efforts, analysis of artifacts created by students, and follow-up assessments including employer surveys and certificate completion rates. This project is supported in part by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.  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.