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Title: Lessons Learned from Participating in a Virtual Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Undergraduate research experiences and internships enhance student learning in undergraduate programs. Due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, many summer research. experiences and internships were canceled or postponed to future summers. The Resilient Infrastructure and Sustainability Education Undergraduate Program (RISE-UP) at the University of Puerto Rico consists of a curriculum that is composed of four courses and an experiential learning experience (internship or undergraduate research). Due to the lack of alternatives for students to fulfill the experiential learning experience in summer 2020, RISE-UP developed a summer virtual undergraduate research experience which focused on developing basic research skills and to apply them to develop interdisciplinary solutions for real problems. We collaborated with students from several disciplines and two. campuses to analyze and address the seismic vulnerability of several structures. This experience allowed us to have a better understanding of seismic vulnerability, as well as finding interdisciplinary solutions to upgrade our infrastructure. It also provided us the opportunity to experience an internship without the risk of exposure to COVID-19. In this paper we share our experience and tools that aided us in our research to show that conducting virtual research is a viable and effective option for undergraduate students.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1832468
PAR ID:
10294892
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the LACCEI international multiconference for engineering education and technology
ISSN:
2414-6390
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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