Robots, plants, and the ten-year-old consultant: teaming K-12 and undergraduate students in community-based projects to encourage stem

This pilot program teams undergraduates with K-12 students in service-learning projects. We hope to increase the supply chain of engineering students in general, with a particular goal of increased enrollment of underrepresented populations. By engaging K-12 students in large, real-world "hands-on/minds-on" problems in teams with undergraduate engineering students, it is hypothesized that these younger students will develop both cognitively (as they learn new information, create solutions, and analyze data and alternatives) and affectively (by increasing their excitement and interest in STEM). For more information, see http://ae3. cert, uiuc. edu/epicsk12.