Model for Project-Based Community Engagement

Community engagement experiences in STEM fields are typically project-based, which introduces components and considerations not explicitly addressed by models commonly used in community-engaged learning more broadly. This paper is a narrative on how we reflected on current models, developed a new one designed for project-based community engagement experiences, and where we see it being useful into the future. While existing models can be useful for STEM-based project teams, project-based engagement raises further questions and presents additional features, such as the existence of the dual value generators of both the project deliverable and project process. We concentrated on providing a macroscopic view of project-based community engagement to organize aspects of a program and maximize positive features while managing resources. The visual model has been developed to facilitate reflection on program design, development, operation, and assessment. It can facilitate intentional consideration, definition, and organization of stakeholders, project deliverables, project process, resources input, and value produced. We foresee several potential uses for this model as a conceptual framework and practical tool for community engagement experiences and programs.

Identifying and disrupting problematic implicit beliefs about engineering held by students in service-learning

Service-learning (SL), especially in engineering, is a promising way to engage and support local communities, educate students as holistic citizens and professionals, and strengthen the connection between higher education and society. However, within engineering education, SL as a pedagogy has yet to reach its full potential as a transformational pedagogy. To further our understanding of why SL in the context of engineering remains limited, this contribution characterizes: 1) beliefs about engineering implicit in students’ descriptions of their SL experiences, and 2) the ways in which students’ beliefs manifest within the context of SL in engineering. We used an inductive, qualitative approach to analyze focus group and interview data. Our data includes rich, contextual descriptions of SL experiences, which enabled us to generate insight into students’ implicit beliefs about engineering and how they manifest in SL contexts. We found that students predominantly draw on three implicit beliefs about engineering when engaged in SL experiences: 1) Engineering is predominantly technical, 2) Engineering requires deliverables or tangible products, and 3) Engineers are the best problem solvers. These beliefs often manifested problematically, such that they promote university-centered and apolitical practice while reinforcing social hierarchy, leading to community exploitation in support of student development. This study produces empirical evidence that such implicit beliefs are a mechanism that limits the potential of SL by hindering community-centric and justice-oriented practice. However, some students demonstrated their ability to disrupt these beliefs, thereby showing the potential for SL as a pedagogy in engineering to surface implicit and counterproductive beliefs about engineering and achieve SL goals. The beliefs that are salient in SL and the concrete ways in which they manifest for students have implications for how SL is practiced in engineering and the experiences of both students and partner communities. These beliefs impact the extent to which the socio-political elements of the service are addressed, the quality and extent to which the engineering solution is aligned with social justice, and the extent to which SL is university- versus community-centric. The implications of these findings lead to recommendations to, and the need for future research on, how engineering educators might explicitly design SL curricula to identify, address, and dismantle problematic beliefs before they manifest in problematic ways in SL contexts.

A Simple Method to Map Groundwater Depth and Water Quality for Leogane, Haiti and Elsewhere

In the aftermath of the January 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the streets of downtown Leogane were paved to mitigate waterborne disease using humanitarian relief funds. After paving, many of the shallow water wells in Leogane dried up. It was believed that the new pavement disrupted groundwater recharge and negatively impacted the wells. Therefore, a project was performed to assess groundwater conditions in a cost-effective manner using a rapid, inexpensive, non-intrusive geophysical approach. The scope of the project included 1) surveying the new pavement system, 2) surveying water wells in Leogane, 3) testing the well water for coliforms, 4) performing geophysical DC resistivity testing to map groundwater depth and 5) developing a groundwater map to assess the impact of the pavement on the water table. As a result of this project, it could not be concluded that the new pavement was a factor in the groundwater fluctuations observed in the water wells in Leogane. It is more likely that some of the drop in the water table was due to the earthquake itself and some of it was caused by seasonal fluctuations in the water table. It was also observed that all the water wells that extract water from shallow (less than 6 m deep) aquifers in Leogane contain coliforms due to their proximity to household latrines, although a second deeper aquifer was identified and found to be coliform-free. With respect to broader impact, this methodology represents a relatively simple approach to mapping groundwater and assessing water quality that can be easily applied to other communities in the developing world to guide their efforts to develop and manage groundwater.

Project MESA: Impact of a student-led service learning project on cultural intelligence and socially engaged design

The intersection of service learning and cultural intelligence has been established a way for engineering students to gain vital formative experience and skills. Project MESA (Making Examinations Safe and Accessible) is a service learning team founded to address the barriers to gynecological screenings in Nicaragua, which are believed to contribute to high cervical cancer incidence. Through this study, the service learning approach of the project is evaluated in its effectiveness in developing cultural intelligence and promoting mastery of the socially engaged design process through team participation. Results showed that students who had greater measures of sentiment for Project MESA displayed higher cultural intelligence. Through a qualitative review, students were also able to identify the major components of socially engaged design. Students who participated in Project MESA also reported that their approach to the engineering design process was enhanced by service learning. Furthermore, students responded to what they felt they were able to gain from participation in the project. A number of themes were identified, the most common of which were prototyping, cultural sensitivity, and partner communications.

Agile Corps - A Public Service-Learning Program Part II

Annually, the U.S. government invests $94 billion on IT products and services. The majority of these projects fail--they are late, over budget, canceled outright, or, if delivered, are outdated or not user-friendly. Due to barriers in hiring and training, the government tends to outsource IT talent at a premium through contractors, but outsourcing talent has not changed the results. Inside the government, the small amount of talent that exists tends to be senior, and there currently are very few, viable options for high-quality, junior and mid-level technologists to find a job in government and professionally develop and progress. Agile Corps is a program designed to identify, recruit, train, and retain junior and mid-level technology talent in the government. Agile Corps exemplifies public service-learning, a learning approach and strategy that combines learning objectives, instruction, and reflection with government service for the public. After completing a discovery research process followed by prototyping and testing the program design, we piloted the Agile Corps program at the US Department of Labor. This paper presents the Department of Labor pilot of Agile Corps and the concept of public service-learning, and measures the impact of the Agile Corps pilot at the Department of Labor.

A Body of Knowledge and Pedagogy for Global Engineering

Global engineers must be taught to consider the historical and present causes of persistent poverty and systematic barriers to prosperity. Such training will better inform the choices engineers make and help move the engineering sector away from a product and community-level focus towards working to address the root causes of poverty. A framing for Global Engineering has recently been proposed by the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, building on over 15 years of curricular efforts. Global Engineering, as taught by the Mortenson Center, positions the field as a complement to Global Health and Development Economics while further embracing a historically contextualized and anti-colonial training.

Construction and testing of a drinking water disinfection and filtration system for developing nations

–A drinking water disinfection and filtration system was designed using inexpensive and accessible materials. The prototype was constructed from two barrels and a pump that circulated water through a gravity sand filter before injection with locally-generated chlorine produced through saline electrolysis. System turbidity reduction and disinfection effectiveness was determined using surface water from -----. Ninety gallons of water showed a 70% reduction in turbidity and no coliform bacteria were detected after ninety minutes of operation. The system was built for less than $900 (2017) and is safe, simple, and reliable.

Service Learning Versus Traditional Project-Based Learning: A Comparison Study in a First Year Industrial and Systems Engineering Course

Service learning involves solving a real community problem while meeting course learning outcomes. Participation in service learning is hypothesized to improve undergraduate student engagement and retention, but little research has been done to measure its impact specifically on beginning engineering students. This study compares two sections of an introduction to industrial and systems engineering course; one with a service learning term project and one with a traditional project-based term project. The service learning project was designed to be a hands-on approach to the material in the project management, communication, and teamwork modules of the course, in addition to giving students the opportunity to practice industrial and systems engineering functions related to their community partner’s defined problem. Surveys, grade data and interviews provide evidence that service learning projects improved students’ perceptions of their preparation for a successful academic and professional career and also lend limited support to improved engagement and retention in engineering compared to the students in the traditional project section.

Letter from the Editor: Pivot

This letter acknowledges and thanks the previous Editor-in-Chief, Thomas Colledge. Notes there is a relatively new Editor-in-Chief for IJSLE. Issues a call for individuals to submit ideas for future special issues of the journal. Recognizes unusual circumstances associated with the global pandemic.

Collegiate service engagement correlations with engineering job selection and satisfaction

Curricular and co-curricular service programs are becoming more common in engineering education. For some students, these experiences align with preexisting desires to use engineering to help others; for others it instills these expectations for one’s career. There has been a lack of research on the long-term impacts of these service experiences on engineers’ career pathways, including satisfaction with an ability to help others through one’s career. A survey asked engineering alumni to describe characteristics of their most and least satisfying jobs with respect to an ability to help others or society. Results showed that for individuals in their first job since graduation, undergraduate collegiate service weakly correlated with an ability to help others as a motivator for job selection, and graduate level collegiate service moderately correlated with satisfaction with an ability to help others through one’s job. The results point to the formative effect that service can have on career aspirations and perceptions, but also highlight the complexity of these issues and the need for more in-depth and nuanced assessments of the effects of collegiate experiences on post-collegiate pathways.