Faculty

ME outreach program brings big engineering dreams to small rural towns

alse6588 — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:30:17 +0000

ME outreach program brings big engineering dreams to small rural towns alse6588 Wed, 04/01/2026 - 13:30

Alexander Servantez

For many high school students in rural Colorado, engineering once felt distant—something that happened somewhere else, by someone else.

But over the past decade, an outreach program in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering has been working to change that reality.

The program, known as the Science and Engineering Inquiry Collaborative (SCENIC), connects С�� Boulder students with rural high schools to introduce hands-on engineering experiences into the classroom, turning local questions about air and soil quality into real-world research projects.

Today, the initiative serves 12 schools and nearly 700 high school students across rural Colorado each year. Its origins, however, were far more modest.

The early evolution

Launched in 2012 with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the program began as a research endeavor. At the time, there was only one graduate student working on the project. They were tasked with using an environmental air quality monitor, positioned at Paonia High School, to investigate the impacts of fracking.

A close look at an air quality monitor, otherwise known as a Y-pod, developed in the Hannigan lab.

But it wasn’t long before the monitors proved they could do more than just collect data—they could spark learning.

“One day, a teacher at the high school saw the monitor up on the roof and thought it would make for a good tool in the classroom,” said Daniel Knight, an associate research professor in mechanical engineering and SCENIC co-founder. “It’s a small monitor that could easily fit in the hands of students. We saw the potential and decided to develop a high-school curriculum using the monitor as a way to deliver engineering education.”

By summer 2013, the curriculum was ready and the monitoring device had been redesigned for classroom use. The following year, Knight and his small team were ready to scale the program, expanding their outreach to four rural high schools.

However, the group soon realized that sustaining rapid growth meant recruiting more college students to lead the high school classrooms. That’s when they decided to introduce a new course in mechanical engineering called Project Based Learning (PBL) in Rural Schools.

Developed alongside professor and fellow SCENIC co-founder Michael Hannigan, the year-long class takes a two-pronged approach. During the first semester, college students learn to master the monitoring technology and become confident classroom leaders. In the second semester, they travel to their assigned rural high schools and help teachers implement the engineering curriculum.

“We piloted the course for the first time in the 2015-2016 school year with just eight students and it really worked,” Knight said. “From there, we were fortunate enough to attract more funding, allowing us to add more students and schools. We even brought С�� Boulder’s School of Education onboard to help monitor the program and identify ways we can improve our outreach efforts going forward.”

A broader impact

Now, nearly 30 undergraduate and graduate students enroll in the class each year, guiding rural high schoolers through projects that range from testing indoor air quality to analyzing soil conditions on local farms.

A group of students at Northfork High School in Hotchkiss, Colorado running a soil burning activity to determine the impact of fire on soil quality.

It’s a unique opportunity for rural high school students to turn their own towns into living laboratories. But Knight says it’s also an opportunity for the university to reach students who might otherwise never see themselves in engineering.

“Engineering and science education is very limited in these rural places,” said Knight. “Our goal is to bring a more interesting, project-based approach to their classrooms. That way we can get the word out about engineering and even just about attending college.”

Knight believes that establishing a more robust engineering identity in rural Colorado could benefit local communities, as well.

Rady Mechanical Engineering is already building that pipeline through partnerships with Western Slope universities that help rural students earn engineering degrees. Maybe one day, rural high schoolers inspired by the department’s outreach can return to their hometowns as engineers, bringing new ideas and solutions to their communities.

Or maybe they return to the program, this time as mentors, guiding students at the same rural high school that first sparked their interest in engineering.

“We offer our partnership program students the opportunity to take a remote section of the PBL course, and sometimes students we once mentored in high school come back as college students to take it,” Knight said. “When they are trained and ready to go, we like to send them back to the high schools they came from to mentor the next generation of students. It’s really rewarding to see that full circle moment come to fruition.”

With the program’s NSF award funding set to expire this year, Knight and his team are preparing a new grant proposal to try and keep their outreach alive. But they say maintaining the status quo isn’t enough—they want the program to strengthen and evolve.

“For years, the program has been mainly centered around air and soil science. However, we are also working to add another avenue of inquiry focused on wildfires,” said Knight. “It’s a topic that is extremely important in our state, especially in rural and mountainous areas of Colorado. We hope that adding wildfire questions into our curriculum gives high school students another meaningful way to engage with engineering and real-world problem solving.”

Associate Research Professor Daniel Knight and Professor Michael Hannigan are leading an outreach program that connects С�� Boulder students with rural high schools to introduce hands-on engineering experiences in the classroom. The initiative, known as the Science and Engineering Inquiry Collaborative (SCENIC), serves 12 schools and nearly 700 high school students across rural Colorado each year, turning local questions about air and soil quality into real-world research projects.

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Welker receives Exceptional Graduate Faculty Mentor Award

alse6588 — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:19:33 +0000

Welker receives Exceptional Graduate Faculty Mentor Award alse6588 Mon, 03/30/2026 - 15:19

The С�� Boulder Graduate School has announced that Assistant Professor Cara Welker has earned one of this year's Exceptional Graduate Faculty Mentor Awards. The award honors faculty members for their outstanding contributions either to mentoring individual graduate students, improving the overall climate of graduate education within their program, or improving the graduate program itself.

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Why do we get a skip in our step when we’re happy? Thank dopamine

alse6588 — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:09:04 +0000

Why do we get a skip in our step when we’re happy? Thank dopamine alse6588 Fri, 02/27/2026 - 13:09

Professor Alaa Ahmed is leading a study that highlights the central role that dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward, seems to play in making people move faster when they want something. The findings could one day help scientists understand and even diagnose a range of human medical conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and depression.

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What causes snow slopes to collapse? Vriend explains, with tips for surviving

alse6588 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 20:48:14 +0000

What causes snow slopes to collapse? Vriend explains, with tips for surviving alse6588 Thu, 02/19/2026 - 13:48

Avalanche deaths are rare inside the boundaries of ski resorts, but the risk rises in the backcountry. Thirty backcountry avalanche deaths were reported in the U.S. during the 2022-23 season, 16 the following year, and 22 in 2024-25. In this article published by The Conversation, Associate Professor Nathalie Vriend explains what happens in an avalanche and techniques for surviving one.

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Global collaboration to limit air pollution flowing across borders could save millions of lives

alse6588 — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:44:38 +0000

Global collaboration to limit air pollution flowing across borders could save millions of lives alse6588 Fri, 02/13/2026 - 10:44

A first-of-its-kind study, led by Professor Daven Henze and collaborators at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, assesses how health benefits of aggressive climate policy travel across international borders. The researchers say that ambitious climate action to improve global air quality could save up to 1.32 million lives per year by 2040.

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Donated blood has a shelf life. A new test tracks how it's aging

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:08:11 +0000

Donated blood has a shelf life. A new test tracks how it's aging Alexander Jame… Wed, 01/21/2026 - 10:08

Roughly 6.8 million people donate blood in the United States alone, helping save millions of lives, according to the American Red Cross. But just like groceries sitting on store shelves, red blood cells age over time. That's why Associate Professor Xiaoyun Ding and medical collaborators at С�� Anschutz have created a new chip device to help give blood centers and hospitals a reliable way to monitor the quality of red blood cells after they sit for weeks in storage.

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New materials, old physics – the science behind how your winter jacket keeps you warm

Alexander James Servantez — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 20:43:25 +0000

New materials, old physics – the science behind how your winter jacket keeps you warm Alexander Jame… Mon, 01/05/2026 - 13:43

Assistant Professor Longji Cui is a materials expert who develops high precision instrumentation and computational techniques to explore energy transport, conversion, and dissipation at extreme scales. In this article by The Conversation, Cui explains how even something as simple as winter jackets that keep you warm during chilly days are a testament to centuries-old physics and cutting-edge science.

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Engineers develop real-time membrane imaging for sustainable water filtration

Alexander James Servantez — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 22:32:55 +0000

Engineers develop real-time membrane imaging for sustainable water filtration Alexander Jame… Tue, 12/16/2025 - 15:32

Professor Victor Bright, Professor Emeritus Alan Greenberg and PhD student Mo Zohrabi have helped develop a laser-based imaging method called stimulated Raman scattering to improve the performance of desalination plants by allowing real-time detection of membrane fouling. The advance could help make desalination more efficient and reliable as global demand for clean water rises.

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Xu selected as a 2026 RIO Faculty Fellow

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 20:13:11 +0000

Xu selected as a 2026 RIO Faculty Fellow Alexander Jame… Wed, 12/10/2025 - 13:13

Assistant Professor Nicole Xu has been selected as a 2026 RIO Faculty Fellow. The program supports faculty in achieving their research and innovation goals and promotes collaboration through tailored training, experiential learning and leadership development opportunities.

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Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:15:00 +0000

Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread Alexander Jame… Fri, 12/05/2025 - 11:15

PhD student Laura Shannon, alongside Professors Greg Rieker and Peter Hamlington are setting fires inside wind tunnels to gain a better understanding of how fire spreads across different terrain. The team says their findings could help keep communities safer in a world where climate-driven wildfire is becoming more common—and more dangerous.

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