Our Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program provides K–12 STEM educators with an opportunity to participate in hands-on research focused on smart streetscapes. This summer, a group of 6 New York City public school educators joined the 2026 RET cohort. Working alongside researchers from Columbia University and Lehman College, CUNY, teachers explored emerging artificial intelligence approaches, computer vision, urban data collection, statistical analysis, and the ways data-driven technologies can improve urban life across New York City.
This summer, the Center’s RET participants worked with Associate Research Scientist Mehmet Turkcan to build custom AI Teaching Kits that combine browser-based AI Lessons with an offline Jetson Orin Nano Super kit, sensors, computer vision demonstrations, and agentic coding workflows. Teachers will bring these kits into the classroom this year to implement their new research-based lesson plans. Read more about these AI teaching kits and the engineering curriculum on CS3’s GitHub.
To help tailor their lesson plans to their school’s student population, teachers attended seminars on STEM education and pedagogy led by Professor Gillian Bayne, with a guest lecture from Professor Brittany Fox-Williams.
When we spoke with the RET educators about what inspired them to join the program, the curricula they hope to bring into their classrooms, and the advice they would give to the next generation of engineers and STEM students, one theme echoed across nearly every interview: teachers want to understand artificial intelligence more deeply so they can help students engage with the technology thoughtfully and creatively.
Robert Calungsod, a computer science and math teacher at Bedford Academy High School in Brooklyn, joined the program because he believes AI is redefining how people teach, learn, and solve real-world problems. He hopes that strengthening his own understanding of the technology will help his students become active creators rather than passive users.
“I want to understand this technology more deeply so I can help my students become thoughtful creators and innovators—not merely users of AI,” Robert shared.
Wenhui Zeng, who teaches mathematics at Hunter College High School in Manhattan, was similarly interested in learning how AI could improve students’ educational experiences. Through the program, she gained exposure to machine learning, computer vision, language models, and other emerging technologies while exploring how they could be used to connect mathematics with real-life applications.
Dr. Shana Elizabeth Henry of The James Baldwin School in Manhattan saw the summer as an ideal time to pursue professional development and learn more about AI. For Shana, who teaches math and computer science, participating in RET was also an opportunity to bring relevant, current information back to her school community. Frank Holden of New Design Middle School in Manhattan joined with a related goal: expanding his knowledge of artificial intelligence to use it more effectively in his math and computer science classes to support student learning.
The teachers’ proposed lesson plans will bring artificial intelligence and smart streetscapes research into tangible classroom experiences. For Wenhui, this means using mathematics to help students investigate the design and safety of New York City streets. Her eighth- through tenth-grade students will learn about daylighting, a street-design approach intended to improve visibility near intersections, as part of a unit on the applications of quadratic functions.
Students will use data about traffic incidents in New York City and explore different daylighting treatments through interactive webpages Wenhui created using agentic AI during the program. They will then identify an intersection in a selected neighborhood that could benefit from daylighting and prepare a proposal supported by the data they collected and analyzed.
Rather than treating quadratic functions as an isolated mathematical topic, the lesson asks students to apply mathematics to a recognizable urban safety challenge. Students must interpret evidence, evaluate a real location, and use their findings to recommend a potential improvement to their community.
Shana also plans to connect mathematics with transportation safety. She hopes to incorporate cycling safety into a high school Algebra II curriculum, developing lessons that connect quadratics with cycling and sports. Her approach reflects her belief that students should continue exploring foundational concepts while also having the creative freedom to engage with evolving technologies.
“Explore!” Shana advised the next generation of STEM students. She believes students should have opportunities to build strong foundational knowledge while remaining curious about new technologies.
Community-centered engineering was another prominent theme across the teachers’ interviews. Percia Gomez, a civil engineering and architecture educator at Brooklyn Technical High School, joined RET to collaborate with researchers, examine current engineering challenges, and translate those experiences into meaningful opportunities for her students. She wants her classroom to reflect the ways professional engineers think, design, collaborate, solve problems and use technology to create solutions.
Percia is interested in developing a modern Certified Surveying Technician Level 1 curriculum that connects traditional surveying methods with digital technologies, data-driven engineering practices and real-world applications.
Her proposed lessons would allow eleventh and twelfth grade students to use tools such as the Smart Survey Notebook to collect and document field data. Students could then use platforms such as Syntra to analyze transportation systems, infrastructure and community challenges through real-world datasets.
Percia also wants to investigate how artificial intelligence can support engineering education without replacing the analytical work students need to perform themselves. Students would remain responsible for conducting calculations, analyzing evidence, justifying engineering decisions and communicating their proposed solutions, while using technology to make their workflows more efficient.
Ultimately, she hopes to develop a curriculum that is hands-on, culturally responsive, aligned with industry expectations and grounded in the idea that engineering can be used to serve and improve communities.
“Engineering is not only about developing technical skills or solving problems,” Percia explained. “It is about creativity, innovation, collaboration, and using your knowledge to serve your community. Your unique perspective and ideas have the ability to create meaningful change.”
Pravesh Shiwnarain of York Early College Academy in Queens also plans to develop a software engineering curriculum focused on a quality-of-life issue affecting urban communities. After considering subjects such as noise pollution, Pravesh decided to focus his lesson on reducing the urban heat island effect.
The topic will give students an opportunity to investigate how infrastructure, the built environment, and neighborhood conditions can contribute to higher temperatures in urban areas. It also creates space for students to consider how technology, data, and community knowledge might inform possible responses.
During the RET program, Pravesh learned more about how large language models work and how teachers can use them to develop educational resources. He identified potential applications ranging from effective prompting and differentiated, locally relevant lesson plans to interactive websites that help students engage with classroom content.
Pravesh’s message to future engineers and STEM students emphasizes the responsibility to listen to the people who will ultimately be affected by new technologies:
“Stay curious, embrace challenges, and never be afraid to ask difficult questions,” Pravesh told us. “The best solutions begin by listening to the communities we serve.” He urged future engineers to use their knowledge not only to build new technology, but to create safer, healthier communities. “Your ideas have the power to shape the future—just make sure that future includes everyone.”
Other teachers are using the program to explore how computer science classrooms can better reflect the experimentation and creativity involved in real-world STEM research. Robert plans to bring his experience into AP Computer Science Principles for eleventh and twelfth-graders, particularly a lesson focused on algorithms and simulation. Simulations allow students to model systems, test different conditions, and evaluate possible outcomes, helping them understand that computer science can be used to investigate complex real-world questions.
He also believes students should understand that meaningful innovation requires more than technical proficiency.
“Stay curious, build boldly, and never lose sight of the people your work is meant to serve,” Robert advised. “The next great breakthrough will come not only from mastering technology, but from combining technical skill with empathy, integrity, and the courage to solve problems that truly matter.”
Frank’s curriculum concept focuses on creating a computer science class that gives middle school students greater freedom to experiment and create. Because much of a student’s school day is necessarily structured, he wants this course to provide room for young people to expand their thinking through hands-on creation.
His advice to the next generation captures that philosophy: “Keep the fun in learning. The more you enjoy a subject, the more you will want to learn about it.”
While each teacher is approaching STEM education from a different subject area, their lesson ideas share an important principle: AI should expand what students can explore and create without replacing critical thinking, evidence-based reasoning, or human judgment.
Cycling safety, street daylighting, surveying, urban heat, computer simulation, and creative coding may appear to be separate topics. Within the Research Experience for Teachers program, however, they are connected by a broader question: How can emerging technology help students understand and improve the communities around them?
The teachers also agreed that research programs like RET offer valuable professional development for educators. Wenhui highlighted the program’s combination of lectures, discussions, and hands-on activities, as well as the support she received from instructors and fellow participants. Through the program, she learned to create interactive webpages with agentic AI that she can now incorporate directly into her lessons.
Robert emphasized that RET places teachers back into the roles of learners and researchers. Exposure to current technologies, collaboration with experts, and authentic problem-solving allows educators to show students that STEM involves experimentation, setbacks, refinement, and discovery.
Percia believes programs like RET help bridge the gaps between education, research, and industry. Teachers can strengthen their subject-matter knowledge and professional networks while creating classroom experiences that better prepare students for college, industry certifications, and future STEM careers.
Shana was equally enthusiastic about the experience, sharing that she would participate again herself: “RET is an amazing program for teachers to learn!”
At the conclusion of the summer program, RET participants presented their CS3 research-based lesson plan to high school students participating in summer research at Columbia Engineering. They will implement these lessons with students during the coming academic year. This structure allows the program’s impact to extend beyond the summer, bringing new research, technologies, and instructional strategies into classrooms across New York City.
Through their work, the 2026 RET teachers are helping students see that engineering, mathematics, and computer science are not limited to textbooks, laboratories, or universities. They can be creative, collaborative, and community-centered ways of understanding the world—and tools students can use to help shape the future.
To learn more about CS3’s Research Experience for Teachers program and future opportunities for educators, visit the Research Experience for Teachers program webpage.