Educational Outreach Activities
The educational and outreach mission of my research is to integrate research outcomes and knowledge into graduate, undergraduate, high school, middle and elementary school education with an ultimate goal to benefit the society and broaden the participation of students in environmental engineering and science. Our educational outreach activities are implemented through periodic lab tours, summer research for undergraduates and high school students, presentations to students in middle and elementary schools. Our upcoming near future plans are to achieve more impact of our research and teaching activities at middle and elementary levels through Utah Department of Education.
We are also using other resources available on campus such as UROP, which are specifically designed to encourage and support undergraduate research. Community outreach is achieved through direct dialogue with stakeholders and water practitioners. Summer workshops are organized specially for wastewater practitioners to train them on the usage of basic molecular tools and emphasize the importance of environmental microbiology in environmental engineering.
Activities under NSF and EPA projects: Dr. Goel coordinated his educational outreach activities with Ms. Jessica Dawyer, Science coordinator, Salt Lake School District, in which case, middle and high school students worked on water quality and microbiology related projects. Participating students were exposed to the concepts of alkalinity, CO2 as a green house gas, how to measure nutrients in water, bacteriological analysis using basic molecular tools. Pre- and post assessment activities were conducted to evaluate student learning and involvement. A lab manual was also published under these various activities.
Currently my students and I are working with Utah Department of Education to promote science and engineering to middle school and native american students