Educators

NPI Programs for Educators

Plans to construct new nuclear-powered electrical plants across the nation and world—six new plants in Texas alone—will mean an increased need for well-educated and skilled workers in the nuclear industry. Before these nuclear plants can be started, we need trained people to operate and maintain them. We will need nuclear technicians with two-year degrees and engineers in all disciplines with four-year technical degrees. These are good-paying jobs with a future: once a nuclear reactor is in operation, it should operate for around 60 years.

All jobs in the nuclear industry from technicians to graduate engineers require math and science. High school teachers can show their students that math and science do matter and will make a difference in their lives.

NPI helps teachers deliver that message!

Working with the Dwight Look College of Engineering and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station in partnership with the National Science Foundation, NPI offers secondary school science and math teachers and pre-service teachers (base criteria is algebra or IPC teacher) a four-week summer residential engineering research experience at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

The E3 program—Enrichment Experiences in Engineering—shows secondary science and mathematics teachers how to introduce engineering concepts to their students, increase student awareness of engineering, and encourage students to consider an engineering career.   The overall mission of the E3 RET program is to excite, empower, and educate teachers about engineering so they in turn will excite, empower, and educate students they come in contact with each day.

Teachers selected to work with NPI learn firsthand about how nuclear power operates.

E3 teachers spend four weeks in the summer alongside nuclear engineers at Texas A&M University developing curricula and conducting experiments to take back to their classrooms. The teachers spend the next two weeks with technicians and engineers at the South Texas Project or at Comanche Peak to expand their understanding of plant operations.

While at Texas A&M, teachers will

• Work with nuclear engineering faculty on real-world research problems,
• Learn how to introduce engineering concepts to their students,
• Visit engineering/science labs on campus, and
• Gain valuable hands-on research experience to take back to the classroom.

At the South Texas Nuclear Project (STP) and Commanche Peak, teachers will

• Learn how nuclear power plant employees keep reactors operating,
• Interact with current and future POWER SET and WIT mentors, and
• Understand how math problems and science experiments translate to real life nuclear power issues.

E3 teachers become powerful ambassadors for nuclear power—taking their new knowledge back to the classroom, and communicating opportunities in the nuclear industry to students.

How Do I Become an NPI E3 Teacher?

Contact:

For general information on the E3 program click on the link below:

http://essap.tamu.edu/e3/info.htm