Cookstoves and Sustainable Development in Rural Namibia: Implication for International Engineering Education

Samantha Lindgren is a doctoral candidate in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and the coordinator of STEM Teacher Development at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her current research aims to broader our understanding of the role of youth in advancing improved energy in rural households. Her current research aims to broaden our understanding of the role of youth in advancing improved energy in rural households. Specifically, she examines whether children’s attitudes about energy affect household behaviors such as the adoption of improved cookstoves or solar cookers, or decisions about fuel selection and use. Her expertise is in designing standards-based curriculum for science classrooms that formally incorporate environmental education methods. Lindgren is currently a Co-PI on a Illinois State Board of Education Math-Science Partnership grant that partners rural teachers with colleagues in urban areas and with collaborators on campus to develop Next Generation Science Standards-aligned curricula. She is a 100kin10 project leader co-directing a multi-institutional team that will be conducting a nationwide survey to better understand rural schools’ needs for sustainable professional learning communities with research institutions and industry. She is also the PI on an NSF proposal that will design and implement an outdoor science classroom and laboratory for use in eachgrade across a rural Illinois school district, and works with the Illinois EPA on some of their outreach efforts.