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This paper investigates the impact of digital reading during educational disruption on science and engineering students' learning experience. Before the pandemic, some studies explored whether university students preferred using printed or digital resources for their academic readings. Amidst the pandemic, online learning became essential. Several studies showed students' preference for printed text. This paper extends a pilot study that was conducted during the first COVID-19 wave in China. A survey consisting of Likert questions and open questions was designed using MS-Forms. The survey was shared with the science and engineering students in Years 2–4 (Levels 1–3) of their study at SWJTU-Leeds Joint School, Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, China. This covered students from four undergraduate programs: Civil Engineering with Transport, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science. In total, 223 students participated in this study. The survey was anonymous and was made available to students for a month. The participation rate is nearly 27%. Findings indicate that the behavior of science and engineering students toward digital reading was different than other majors, and it is generally favorable. The necessity for online learning during educational disruption has encouraged some students to develop their digital reading skills. © 2023 by the authors.
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ABET is the worldwide leader in accrediting pro-grams in computing, engineering, applied and natural sciences, and engineering technology. Only four of 54 countries in Africa have programmes which achieved ABET accreditation. During COVID-19 and in times of intense competition, it has become especially important for institutions to distinguish their programs as having high quality. Using the University of Namibia's Bachelor of Science in Computer Science as a case study, we use a systematic methodology to evaluate and analyse the programme in a detailed, step-by-step, easy-to-understand manner. We evaluate this program with respect to ABET's General Criteria and then examine how well it does against ABET's Program Criteria in computer science. Our aim is to pinpoint shortcomings and solutions. The results for the selected program, despite ticking positives for a number of criterion, show the need for considerable work to meet ABET accreditation. Our research stands to inspire university programs in Africa to strive for ABET accreditation as a way of distinguishing themselves. © 2022 IEEE.
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The case study learning methodology has been used for more than 20 years in teaching science and engineering. This methodology is known to be highly effective in promoting students' understanding of the concepts and improving their ability to make connections between the concepts. In 2020 and 2021, the limited access to laboratory equipment and facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged instructors to implement alternative methods. One of the alternatives considered in the current institution is the use of case studies to enhance students' understanding of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics topics during the online and hybrid implementations of those courses. In this study, an industry-based air-conditioning (AC) unit is facilitated to prepare a case study to teach refrigeration cycles in the laboratory part of thermodynamics. All four components of the AC unit, which include a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve, and an evaporator, are assembled on a single platform. In an actual application, the compressor and condenser are part of the outside unit while an evaporator and expansion valve would be located indoors. In the first phase of the case study, students analyze temperature and pressure data for the normal operation of the unit to understand the function of each component in the cycle. In addition, by using thermodynamics property tables, they determine enthalpy and entropy values at different stages of the process, generate a temperature versus entropy (T-s) diagram, and calculate the efficiency of the AC unit. In the second phase of the study, they are provided with temperature and pressure data collected for the cases corresponding to when there is a problem with the AC unit. They perform analysis of those cases. The examples of issues introduced include part of the condenser or evaporator coils being disabled or using a partially blocked air filter. The equipment used in the case study is modified by the manufacturer to simulate those issues. During data analysis, student teams are tasked with identifying the issue introduced by looking at the changes in temperature, pressure, and T-s diagram. This paper provides detailed information about the case study, data collection, and analysis. Copyright © 2022 by ASME.
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Before the pandemic, distance learning was not a widely adopted option for science and engineering programs where in some courses, such as chemistry, electromagnetism, or fluid mechanics, etc., attending to laboratories and workshops was in most cases mandatory. The lockdown forced us to innovate, searching alternative ways to teach experimental phenomena, suddenly replaced with simulation science and technology, subjects that although rely on computers, also suffered changes from the transition. In this contribution, we propose an undergraduate course on simulation for chemical engineering, departing from the fact that modeling, and simulation are multipurpose and multidisciplinary tools. The course aims to reinforce the concepts of dynamical systems by using analogies between process engineering examples and other disciplines, particularly, epidemiology. For this purpose, a final project on modeling the dynamics of the COVID 19 pandemic in Mexico was designed and validated with a public database from the Mexican Secretariat of Health. By doing this, the students got in touch with the evolution of the dynamics outside of school hours, since it was common to see weekly updates and extrapolation trends of the pandemic, thus applying their skills to the final project. It was found that success factors were the use of official data, the use of Graphical User Interfaces to explore diverse simulation scenarios and the final project. The transition to the Distance Learning faced several challenges that were partially coped with the redesign of the course. © 2023 Institution of Chemical Engineers
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The Virtual Snap World is a project that aims to facilitate the teaching of electronics through educational tools. It finds opportunities in the Minecraft video game to connect and promote interest in science and engineering in new generations. This new setting eases the hybrid environment performance which means it provides the face-to-face or virtual system. This presents a solution to the problem the COVID-19 pandemic has created so as to focus on prevention measurements for contagion and the impediment to create events. This project allows having learning spaces considering people's health now that it can be developed from anywhere in the world. © 2022 IEEE.
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What makes Filipino students resilient in times of crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic? Even as some students succumb to anxiety and despair and lose motivation to learn, others actively take charge of their learning and remain hopeful and strong amid severe trials. What keeps them going, and what can we learn from them? 25 professors of the Ateneo de Manila School of Science and Engineering selected 92 college undergraduate and graduate students whom they observed to display resilience in learning and prodded them to reflect on how they overcame challenges in and out of the classroom. Whatever their circumstances, our study reveals that these resilient students rely on three main sources of support: deep faith, solid family bonds, and close friends and mentors who hold them accountable. As contrasted to the more individualistic context that gives rise to resilience as posited by Western literature, Filipino resilience is instead truly a community affair. [ FROM AUTHOR]
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The paper examines the relation between the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic and the respective measures adopted by various countries collectively labeled as 'social distancing'. The progress of the disease is publicly available from the data published by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CSSE) that contain the new cases of Covid-19 and deaths from Covid-19 per country on a daily basis. Moreover, Google reports the situation regarding social distancing in a number of social activity categories in several countries based on data gathered by users of mobile phones using Google mobile applications. The paper analyzes these two sets of data for 22 countries (20 in Europe plus the USA and Canada) and shows a significant correlation between the decrease in the levels of social distancing and the daily rate of increase of new Covid-19 cases. Consequently, the discussion is concerned with the effect of social distancing measures per category of social activity, the level of conformance displayed by citizens in each country as well as the number of days required between the imposition of the measures and their effect on the spread of the pandemic. This discussion provides additional insight that can assist policy makers in imposing the most effective set of measures as well as the proper sequence of measures withdrawing in in similar situations. © 2022 IEEE.
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It has become increasingly important for K-12 students to learn how to investigate patterns, correlations, and significance in data. The Berkeley Engineering Research Experiences for Teachers plus Data (BERET+D) pairs undergraduate pre-service teachers and experienced in-service science and mathematics teachers (PSTs and ISTs) to engage in engineering and data science research, exploring and analyzing data sets drawn from a variety of STEM fields and laboratories across the UC Berkeley campus. In addition to conducting independent summer research projects with guidance from university research faculty, the program provides opportunities for: (1) PSTs to develop data science-based lessons inspired by their research and aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), (2) ISTs to create data science-based curricula designed to inspire middle and high school students to see STEM classes as exciting and with real-life applications, and (3) ISTs to collaborate with and mentor PSTs preparing to enter K-12 STEM classrooms. Contributing towards broader impacts, CalTeach recruits a racially and socioeconomically diverse population of PSTs, and all ISTs were recruited from local public schools, in order to educate, prepare, and encourage more minority and female K-12 students to consider higher education and careers in STEM. During the first two summers of this project (2020-2021), participants completed over forty data-science related projects, developed over thirty K-12 data-science related lesson plans in math, science, and engineering, and created six classroom-ready and publicly accessible (teachengineering.org) curricular units showcasing data science. As an example of these curricular units, and as further evidence of the project's broader impact, one IST has developed an ongoing partnership between their classroom and a research laboratory on campus allowing high school physics students to learn data science techniques by analyzing and interpreting distant satellite signals collected by radio telescopes. Preliminary evaluation of this ongoing project revealed that participants viewed data science as important and essential in K-12 curriculum, that data analysis is a critical and useful skill for youth, and that data science aligns closely with the science and engineering practices called forth by NGSS. Though constrained by work-from-home restrictions due to COVID during the first two years, participants described their experience as positive and valuable, particularly in conceiving of ways to engage young learners with data-science through remote instruction. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022
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The COVID-19 pandemic caused a major disruption to colleges and universities, with many institutions cancelling in-person learning and moving to completely online instruction for a time. Since the pandemic began, institutions of higher education have utilized varying degrees of face-to-face, hybrid and online instruction. These changes have impacted both students and faculty in science and engineering fields. Traditional science and engineering students have had to adapt quickly to new, and largely unwelcome, means of learning. In addition, faculty have had to abruptly alter their teaching to adjust to changes in teaching formats imposed by the pandemic. Using a web-based survey of engineering and computer science programs in US and Canadian universities, this paper studies the challenges introduced to STEM education due to the COVID-19 pandemic from students' perspectives. The survey was administered in face-to-face, hybrid and completely online classes to study students' perceptions and attitudes as well as challenges related to changes in teaching formats during the pandemic. Furthermore, this study assesses students' perceptions about the future of teaching in a post COVID-19 environment. Results of this study provide insights into both current and future impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on engineering and computer science education. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
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Computational methods have gained importance and popularity in both academia and industry for materials research and development in recent years. Since 2014, our team at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has consistently worked on reforming our Materials Science and Engineering curriculum by incorporating computational modules into all mandatory undergraduate courses. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education as on-campus resources and activities became highly restricted. Here we seek to investigate the impact of the university moving online in Spring 2020 and resuming in-person instructions in Fall 2021 on the effectiveness of our computational curricular reform from the students' perspective. We track and compare feedback from students in a representative course MSE 182 for their computational learning experience before, during and after the pandemic lockdown from 2019 to 2021. Besides, we survey all undergraduate students, for their online learning experiences during the pandemic. We find that online learning enhances the students' belief in the importance and benefits of computation in materials science and engineering, while making them less comfortable and confident to acquire skills that are relatively difficult. In addition, early computational learners are likely to experience more difficulties with online learning compared to students at late stages of their undergraduate education, regardless of the computational workload. Multiple reasons are found to limit the students' online computational learning, such as insufficient support from instructors and TAs, limited chances of peer communication and harder access to computational resources. Therefore, it is advised to guarantee more resources to students with novice computational skills regarding such limiting reasons in the future when online learning is applied. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022
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Prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress among university students worldwide is high. In most cases, stress intervention is individual-based and involves small groups for relatively short periods. New evidence shows that stress increased during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021), when learning moved to online formats and social distancing was enforced worldwide. Our research focuses on a course on adjusting to stressful situations that moved online after many years of being taught in class. Based on qualitative and quantitative analyses, we showed that the course offered students two main benefits. First, the course structure was designed as a ritual, providing students with a sense of control. Second, students were engaged in a group activity, further contributing to their ability to adjust to stressful situations, as it created a platform for sharing. Findings are discussed in the context of the ongoing pandemic, and implications for coping with student stress post COVID-19 are suggested. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of European Journal of Engineering Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
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Anvil is a new XSEDE advanced capacity computational resource funded by NSF. Designed with a systematic strategy to meet the ever increasing and diversifying research needs for advanced computational capacity, Anvil integrates a large capacity high-performance computing (HPC) system with a comprehensive ecosystem of software, access interfaces, programming environments, and composable services in a seamless environment to support a broad range of current and future science and engineering applications of the nation's research community. Anchored by a 1000-node CPU cluster featuring the latest AMD EPYC 3rd generation (Milan) processors, along with a set of 1TB large memory and NVIDIA A100 GPU nodes, Anvil integrates a multi-tier storage system, a Kubernetes composable subsystem, and a pathway to Azure commercial cloud to support a variety of workflows and storage needs. Anvil was successfully deployed and integrated with XSEDE during the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. Entering production operation in February 2022, Anvil will serve the nation's science and engineering research community for five years. This paper describes the Anvil system and services, including its various components and subsystems, user facing features, and shares the Anvil team's experience through its early user access program from November 2021 through January 2022. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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The work presented in this Full Paper is categorized as Innovative Practice, as per FIE guidelines. Robofest is a worldwide robotics competition program for students in 4th-12th grade and college. Student teams design, construct, and program their autonomous robots in a variety of competition categories. In the 2019-2020 academic year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we designed an innovative and novel online robotics competition format using Zoom Webinar tools rather than cancelling the world championship competition. The purpose of this paper is to show how we designed, implemented synchronized online robotics competitions, and to analyze the results and efficacy of the Robofest Online World championships (ROWC). One hundred and fifty-three teams comprising of 360 students competed in three age divisions and six categories held weekends from Aug. 28 through Oct. 10, 2020. Most teams set up playing fields at home and we trained judges online prior to the competitions. We sent the description of an unknown game ending task and unknown playing field factors to local volunteer judges at the same time just before the 30-minute work time on the competition day. After checking to make sure that all the teams were ready to play, we sent the game start signal to all the teams at the same time through Zoom. The local judges scored the runs and submitted videos to the Robofest office for score verification. Robofest office staff also proctored the competitions through Zoom screens for fair competition results and maximum learning opportunities. It was an innovative practice of using online conference tools to organize the world's first unique "synchronized" online autonomous robotics competitions for engineering and computing education. Anonymous coach & judge survey results after the ROWC showed that the satisfaction rate was better than the in-person competition surveys of previous years. Additionally, 95% of students surveyed after the ROWC exposure said that they would now consider a career involving STEM versus 91% of students surveyed after the 2019 in-person competitions.
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For universities, COVID-19 made traditional means of providing quality teaching and learning impossible. Nevertheless, students required delivery and assessment to progress or graduate on time. Subjects in Science and Engineering with practical components presented a particular challenge, and this paper assesses institutional means and the perspectives of both instructors and students to determine best practice in this context. By triangulating institutional data (from pre- and post-pandemic policy and module delivery data) with staff and student surveys, followed up by semi-structured interviews, this paper examines both macro and micro perspectives and highlights successful and less-than-successful strategies for skill-based subjects. Somewhat surprisingly, our data indicates higher initial satisfaction among students than teachers. Further, we provide institutional and individual suggestions to implement successful online teaching and learning under different delivery scenarios (e.g., simulation vs. actualisation, or the employment of virtual and augmented reality systems) while mitigating potential negative impacts on the experience. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
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In order to continue using highly frequented rooms such as classrooms, seminar rooms, offices, etc., any SARS-CoV-2 virus concentration that may be present must be kept low or reduced through suitable ventilation measures. In this work, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to develop a virtual simulation model for calculating and analysing the viral load due to airborne transmission in indoor environments aiming to provide a temporally and spatially-resolved risk assessment with explicit relation to the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. In this work, the first results of the model and method are presented. In particular, the work focuses on a critical area of the education infrastructure that has suffered severely from the pandemic: classrooms. In two representative classroom scenarios (teaching and examination), the duration of stay for low risk of infection is investigated at different positions in the rooms for the case that one infectious person is present. The results qualitatively agree well with a documented outbreak in an elementary school but also show, in comparisons with other published data, how sensitive the assessment of the infection risk is to the amount of virus emitted on the individual amount of virus required for infection, as well as on the supply air volume. In this regard, the developed simulation model can be used as a useful virtual assessment for a detailed seat-related overview of the risk of infection, which is a significant advantage over established analytical models.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , SARS-CoV-2 , COVID-19/epidemiology , Computer Simulation , Disease Outbreaks , Humans , VentilationABSTRACT
Graduate and undergraduate students experience extreme stress, anxiety, and imposter syndrome during their tenure and struggle to cope with the demands of academia. The strain and pressure have only intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Excessive stress increases the risk of medical and mental health concerns, such as anxiety and depression, which influences academic performance. This paper highlights the importance of mental health via quantitative analysis of graduate and undergraduate students from various STEM majors, focusing on space sciences and engineering, and emphasizes the need to prioritize mental health. The study used an online survey, which employed the DASS-21 scale to assess the severity of perceived depression, anxiety, and stress levels of students in the space sector. A self-developed questionnaire by the researchers was used to check the causes for it and get feedback on the effectiveness of present mental health support systems provided by educational institutions, and the data were analyzed through SPSS software. The final sample consisted of 224 undergraduate and graduate-level students of the space sector - studying space sciences, space engineering, or another science or engineering degree with a project, internship, or work related to the space sector. Students from various parts of the world, such as the USA, India, UK, France, Germany, Mexico, Russia, etc. participated in this study. The results of this study indicated that out of the 224 participants, 25.4% showed severe to extremely severe signs of stress, 31.3% showed severe to extremely severe signs of anxiety and 34.9% showed severe to extremely severe signs of depression. The top 3 concerns for stress were reported as academics, the ongoing pandemic, and jobs and about 46% of the participants rated their university's mental health-related support facilities as poor to very poor. There was a non-significant difference found in the stress, anxiety, and depression levels of students with different gender identities and different geographical locations. The results of this research highlight the importance of mental health & stress management classes for students and suggest that a regular evaluation of students' mental health to monitor their well-being is very crucial to help them cope up with stress and anxiety. This research stresses the need for better facilities for mental well-being by educational institutions. Copyright © 2021 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved.
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Many female undergraduate Engineering students struggle during their first and second years of college with finding their place and questioning whether they belong in Engineering. It has been shown that mentoring programs can help encourage women to stay in engineering fields. The University started a Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) mentoring program in Fall 2019, and continued it through the pandemic, during the Spring and Fall 2020 terms. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the first three semesters of the WISE mentoring program on engagement and satisfaction, as well as retention and GPA of women within the program, compared to a control group of women who did not go through the program. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the success of the program was also assessed. The program was designed to implement one-on-one peer mentoring within the WISE program, incorporate mentoring cohort activities, and provide networking opportunities with faculty and students in engineering and science disciplines. Virtual mentoring activities were also incorporated during the pandemic. The program was facilitated by a graduate student in engineering. The initial cohort in Fall 2019 had a total of 44 pairs of women consisting of freshmen mentees paired with upper class mentors within the WISE program. Despite the pandemic and incorporating virtual mentoring meetings, 50 pairs of students joined the mentoring program in Fall 2020, an increase of nearly 14%. Most of the women (82.5%) who were part of the mentoring program rated their partnership as a 3 out of 5 or better. The GPAs of the women in the mentoring program, and those who were not were not significantly different. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
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Knowledge of science and engineering plays a major role in solving problems and enhancing people's lives in our world today. Investing in the future's science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals is vital to strengthening the growing demand for engineers. Previous studies about raising interest in STEM majors focused on (a) the number of undergraduate students who decide on a major prior to attending college, (b) common misconceptions regarding the STEM field, and (c) the effectiveness of pedagogical techniques to increase curiosity. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, pedagogical techniques to introduce K-12 students to the STEM fields must be adjusted. This paper investigates the effectiveness of various methods to engage and interact with K-12 students interested in STEM during the COVID-19 learning environment and discusses key conclusions from a pilot 90-minute virtual module for K-12 students, showcasing the importance and versatility of STEM in the modern world. Through hands-on activities, interactive games, easy to use software, demonstrations, and videos, student interest and curiosity in the STEM field is increased and K-12 teachers are provided with tools to continue to foster this curiosity throughout the school year. Surveys were taken before and after the learning module measure interest in the STEM fields directly related to the module provided. Studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between motivational, secondary learning, and post-secondary variables on the desire to be a STEM student. Throughout our education system, many misconceptions cast the STEM field as tough and only designed for the smartest of students. Data from a U.S. news article shows that one-third of kids lose interest in this field prior to fourth grade, and 50% have lost interest by the eighth grade. These misconceptions lead students to become disinterested in a field of study for which they have only had a paltry exposure. Studies have shown that the best ways to spark curiosity in the STEM field is through hands-on activities, field trip tours, interactive games, and real-world applicability. The main reasons that educational institutions have trouble providing these concepts to their students is because of the lack of funding and the varying emphasis on STEM programs. There are numerous sites, sources, and programs expose students to STEM, which require minimal resources and funding in the eyes of the schools. The study found that capitalizing on the increased use of technology in the current COVID learning environment enables K-12 teachers to increase STEM awareness, interest, and intellectual curiosity of K-12 students in the virtual classroom. Further, the study found that connecting K-12 students with professionals across the STEM fields brings the virtual modules to life by connecting the learning to real-world applications and allowing students to “see themselves” in the field. Together, the teachers and professionals leverage the technology to draw a diverse group of young people to STEM fields in the future. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
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In response to Covid-19, the Penn State Physics Department and the Center for Nanoscale Science, a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (NSF-MRSEC), made a rapid pivot of our Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program from an in-person 10-week research experience to a virtual research preparation and professional development program which was designed to prepare science and engineering undergraduate and master's students for entrance into the workforce or their continuation in a graduate program. The overarching goal of this virtual experience was to develop and refine professional skills that are often not explicitly taught in science and engineering classes. The program had three distinct areas: (1) Career Preparation (Professional Development & Career Exploration), which provided students with tools to “build their brand” and exposed them to the wide range of career paths one can pursue with a science or engineering degree;(2) Scientific Research Skills, which comprised academic seminars, a scientific journal club, and hands-on educational workshops;and (3) Community Impact and Involvement, where students developed a scientific outreach product. Here we describe the structure and content of the program, the deliverables created, and lessons learned from this unique summer experience. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
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The K-12 education platform has drastically taken a different route since the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. With the classroom being transitioned to online, educators are presented with many challenges to keep their class engaged. The curriculum of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is possibly the toughest to adapt to remote instruction, given that participants may no longer have access to many school labs or school STEM resources. Moreover, science and engineering in-person outreach programs are no longer feasible due to the pandemic and one cannot help but question whether the adoption of the hands-on instructional strategies pioneered by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) will be able to be maintained. Faculty and graduate assistants at Stony Brook University in New York developed a unique, remote, yet hands-on engineering opportunity for middle school participants over the course of five 90-minute sessions of synchronous learning. Asynchronous learning was also available through a website populated with detailed manuals and short videos demonstrating the activities and office hours helped participants to clarify questions and finish their designs and prototypes. Through this Engineering Academy experience, participants (N=90), from across Long Island, were exposed to real-world applications of 3D printing and electrical and materials/chemical engineering, as well as the engineering design process. Questionnaires were administered pre- and post-every session to learn about participants' engineering literacy while post Academy surveys were collected to analyze both participants' engineering self-efficacy and knowledge. Future science and engineering curricular efforts may utilize and replicate the learned best practices to ensure a sustainable implementation of the NGSS via online or hybrid (online and in-person) learning opportunities. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021