Curriculum Proposal
Introduction
When discussing the need for an Engineering Studies module for ES 101, it is imperative to address the current state of the major at Lafayette College from a social context. As it stands now, Engineering Studies is treated as a lesser form of engineering by our peers that are studying more technical engineering branches. In addition, after conducting a survey among the senior year students in the Engineering Studies major, 64% of the students did not start as Engineering Studies majors and ended up transferring into this branch of engineering from another traditional branch. The common consensus among the seniors that took part in this survey, however, was that the skills exclusively learned within the Engineering Studies department have prepared them for the plethora of situations that 21st-century engineer faces in the world.
To that end, incoming engineering students must learn about what the Engineering Studies major has to offer and how it differs from the other majors that are typically considered first. In that same survey, only 21% of seniors started as Engineering Studies majors and stayed that way from the start. The current absence of an Engineering Studies module for ES 101 leaves new engineering students in a situation where they may not know about a potential branch of engineering that they may be interested in and could be a large contributor to why so many students end up transferring into this major from another one. Creating an Engineering Studies module in this sense would help introduce students to this branch of study much earlier on in their college experience.
To properly create an Engineering Studies ES 101 module, we first need to understand what the core of the Engineering Studies major is. For this project, the core classes that we take as Engineering Studies majors are Engineering Public Policy, Engineering Economics, and the capstone: Engineering and Society. These three classes serve as the basic principles that differentiate EGRS from the other technical-based majors. We are fundamentally trained to think about engineering-based problems from angles that are outside of the typical ‘Engineering Problem Solving’ methodology. When discussing energy alternatives like solar panels, for example, Engineering Studies majors do not just think about how much energy a solar panel can create, we are trained to think about how many panels it would take to create an equivalent amount of energy to the sources we use now. We think about where these solar panels would go, how much they would cost, and who is affected by these decisions. It is through this exhaustive analysis that Engineering Studies majors can confidently advise and guide the course of technical projects that will provide the best possible outcome for the communities that they serve. To that end, an ES 101 module should provide students with a surface-level understanding of the skills needed to make these types of analyses, and more importantly, get students excited about the major.
Part of our preparation for this proposal deals with understanding the fundamental formatting of the ES 101, and we sought guidance from engineering professors who have taught the course in the past. We discussed the contents of a potential ES 101 module with Professor Sanford and Professor Senra, who had defined the goals that the EGRS ES 101 module should aim to achieve. To that end, we believe that we have created a syllabus for a prospective EGRS ES 101 module that properly encapsulates the fundamentals of the major, as well as provide students with a fun, engaging introduction to not only the Engineering Studies major but Lafayette engineering as a whole.
The syllabus for our course outlines the seven-week period in which the module will take place, as well as states the expectations of the class, learning outcomes, the catalog description, class meeting times and location, office hours, abstract, required texts, grading scheme, disability statement, privacy statement, federal credit hour compliance and academic integrity statements. As is the case with all ES 101 modules, the main goal of the course is to get new students excited about engineering. From a more specific perspective, however, the specific outcomes we are aiming to achieve from an EGRS angle are for students to understand what Engineering Studies are and the importance of interdisciplinary engineering education, while also gaining an understanding of the engineering design process. We would like for students to recognize that engineering at Lafayette and beyond is innovative and exciting, and that being able to identify social, ethical, and economic issues surrounding the information for projects play just as large a role in ensuring a project’s success as the technical aspects of it. We aim for this module to help students develop their organization, management, and teamwork skills, and also gain experience conveying engineering information in a written report.
Description of Course Schedule
Week 1
In the first week of this course, the primary focus is to explain what the course is and the purpose it has. For instance, at the first meeting, students will go over the syllabus with the instructor and peers. This gives students a greater understanding of what will take place and what is expected of them. Also, it allows for students to ask any questions they may have about the format or contents of the course. After the students feel comfortable about the syllabus, we would then transition into a discussion about what exactly engineering is and its history. We feel the history topics that would be best discussed would be Global, United States, Lafayette, and then the EGRS major. This will give the students a wide scope to begin, and then narrow down to them specifically. This is also helpful in leveling the playing field and establishing a common understanding of engineering despite the students’ common knowledge.
At the next meeting, students will be lectured and watch a slide presentation on the Intro to Engineering Studies which would outline the core classes and values of the program. Included in this lecture would be the outcomes of the major and the possible and common career paths post-graduation. Lastly, there will be information on what makes the program different from the others. This meeting would display to students what the major truly embodies and they can begin to help persuade them to join the EGRS major. We will make sure to accurately portray the technical aspects of the major, as well as the socio-technical aspects. Overall, this meeting would help educate the students on what the program offers to them and their future.
At the meeting at the end of the week, there will be a class discussion about the ethics of engineering following a Crash Course video on the subject. The Crash Course video will provide a foundation for the discussion as it introduces and defines engineering ethics. We can move into the impact engineering ethics has as well as a plethora of examples. The Professor could also start getting into ethical issues within engineering such as redlining. This will be helpful in the sense that the students will get some information about a very important topic in the engineering field.
In terms of homework for week one, students will be responsible for reading an excerpt from “Lessons from Ghana: Why Some Technological Fixes Work and Others Don’t” by Nalani Chhetri, which is referenced in Engineering and Sustainable Community Development by Juan Lucana, Jen Schneider and John A. Leydens. This short article provides a great example of how to approach and how not to approach an engineering problem as there are non-technical factors at play. The examples in this are simple enough for first-year students to comprehend, while also highlighting the clear positives and negatives.
This week, it is best to lay the groundwork for the rest of the semester. Explaining Engineering Studies, in its current state and the previous, will allow students to formulate their thoughts on becoming an EGRS is right for them. We intend to make the rest of the course enjoyable, but also developmental. Moving into Friday, where we begin the first day of building the engineering study skills we are looking into each semester, the professor needs to cover the big ideas so they can be referenced and thought about throughout the semester. We feel watching the Crash Course YouTube Video on Engineering Ethics would be a good starting point. The video provides good examples and information, while also being entertaining. Following it will be a lecture about ethics and engineering ethics. There will be some opportunities for student discussion, but given the sensitive nature of the topic, it will be limited. The topic of redlining, among other inequalities, is going to be introduced. These topics will simply be introduced as the purpose is to make the students aware of the issues.
Week 2
For the second week of the course, students will learn about socio-technical factors and some of the issues that can arise through the use of “Lessons from Ghana: Why Some Technological Fixes Work and Others Don’t” by Nalani Chhetri, and other real-world examples.
At the first meeting of the week, students will participate in a discussion based on the excerpt about gelled ethanol and Twig Light they were assigned. In this discussion, students should demonstrate what they have learned and share their thoughts with their peers. To ensure that the students cover the material, the discussion will be graded on both discussion and participation. The case study that was assigned last week, on gelled ethanol and twig light technology, from the Engineering and Sustainable Community Development, will be the topic of the discussion. The ideas that will be best suited for the classes to follow will be centered around the question, why did these technologies not work? To summarize the short reading is about students from Arizona State University that designed solutions to perceived problems in Ghana. The students created a gelled ethanol stove that did not produce smoke as they viewed the smoke from cooking with firewood as an issue. The students did not account for the cultural aspects of the families they were creating this technology for as their food required large pots that were not compatible with the tiny stove. The stove was designed for five family members, but the average home in Ghana has anywhere from ten to twenty-one family members. The students also overlooked the fact that their solution was more expensive, as families used free firewood as their fuel source. The Ghana families did not even view the smoke while cooking as an issue. The excerpt then moves into a more successful example, with the Twig Light story. The designers worked with poor villages to create a solution to their specific needs. The Twig Light technology was originally for lighting up a small room by burning twigs. When this was shown to the villagers, they suggested using charcoal instead of twigs, the lights shined brighter than ever before. After more discussion with the villagers, the design team realized that electricity in the area was unreliable and expensive. This made charging cell phones extremely difficult. After a few modifications, the villagers had a new way to charge their phones. This demonstrates the potential when you ask the right questions and account for socio-technical factors. It is certainly important for students to do the reading before the next class as it will be extremely helpful for discussion purposes. These two topics can provide an interesting way to introduce the students to socio-technical factors without them even realizing it. To reinforce the technical aspects of the major, we can hammer home tangible engineering factors and set aside a few minutes to discuss potential ideas for other uses of the technologies or ways to improve the gelled ethanol.
The next class meeting will be a lecture focusing on the importance of socio-technical factors affecting the field of engineering. When the lecture is over, students will be encouraged to participate in a discussion about the lecture. At the end of class, the students will be reminded to complete the assigned reading ‘The Stranger’s Eyes’ from the book Engineering and Sustainable Community Development by Juan Lucana, Jen Schneider, and John A. Leydens (Lucena). The lecture and assigned homework will be extremely important and helpful for the discussion that will take place at the next class session as the reading embodies many socio-technical aspects.
At the end of the week, students will participate in a discussion about the excerpt ‘The Stranger’s Eyes’. This story is about a young man named Pierre from North America who is tasked with installing mills for grinding grain in Mali in West Africa. Pierre runs into a plethora of socio-technical problems. The ones we feel would be best suited for the class discussion about how the women feel about the men not being involved in this project, the existing mill across the street, and the religious positions that must be elected. The women were initially concerned about the fact that men were not to be involved. The culture in Mali is not the same as the Western world and the purpose of his mill was to prevent women from being overworked. They had questions “if the mill breaks down, who will fix it? Who will make sure that it has diesel to run? Who will really take care of the money?” (Lucena et al. 89) Pierre overlooked the fact that there was an existing and struggling mill across the street from the location of the new mill. This could have created problems with competition, loyal customers and could potentially divide the tight-knit community. Lastly, a Christian woman was to be elected president and treasurer, while non-Christian could only be vice-president and secretary. This created hatred and jealousy, leading to a split in the community. The professor can segway the discussion into next week’s topics of policy off of what the effects could be when having required religions for powerful positions as the people can control the policies. The discussion is intended to get the students thinking about all of the factors involved in engineering. The technical failure of the mill can also be discussed to help hammer home the technical aspect of the Engineering Studies major while still highlighting socio-technical issues overlooked by Pierre. Again, to hold students accountable for doing the assigned reading and meaningfully contributing to the discussion, the discussion will be graded.
Week 3
Week three starts with a lecture about government structure along with the policy process. During this lecture, students will learn the basics of the subject while also hinting at the relevance to engineering. Today is crucial for setting the groundwork for the students, giving them all similar knowledge levels. The overall theme throughout this week should parallel EGRS 251 to help further their understanding of the major. According to the Lafayette College Course Catalog, EGRS 251 “introduces students to the governance of science and engineering. Course topics include the overall context for science and engineering policy, the public policy process and institutions involved in that process, and several current sciences and engineering public policy issues. The course includes a combination of role-playing exercises, debates, field trips, as well as traditional lectures.” We intend to cover similar topics at a level designed for first-year students.
At the next meeting, students will be educated on the role of policy in engineering and also how engineering affects policies. Oftentimes, engineers and engineering students have a very limited understanding of how public policies affect their careers. Engineering is constantly influenced by laws and regulations, and failure to comply with them, whether it be safety, environmental, etc., can ruin entire projects. They will learn about stakeholders, how to identify a stakeholder, and their importance within a project.
In the final meeting of the week, the students will be introduced to the socio-technical topics about COVID-19. This is a topic where all students already have a substantial knowledge base as it has impacted all of their lives. The main topic of today’s class will be Zoom and we will look into the societal impact it had. This great quote from Enid Mumford “The most important thing that socio-technical design can contribute is its value system. This tells us that although technology and organizational structures may change, the rights and needs of the employee must be given as high a priority as those of the non-human parts of the system (p. 338)” could be an avenue to force the students to view Zoom and other online meeting sites differently. After the brief overall class discussion, students will be split into groups to talk and have them consider the social, political, and engineering aspects of the issue. At the end of the class, students will have to share with the class what they talked about amongst their groups.
This week’s homework assignment will be to find an article on an engineering policy and to write a one-page reflection. This assignment will be graded. This assignment will help make sure if the students are understanding what is being taught and discussed in the class.
Week 4
Week four begins with a lecture about supply and demand, markets, the invisible hand. The goal of today is to give the students a working knowledge of how the economy works. To get the most out of lecture two of this week, we need to provide the students with a foundation of the economy and its markets. This week should discuss topics from EGRS 261, at a lighter level. This is to help show students what their course load through the engineering students major will look like. This lecture will cover the basic yet important economic concepts. Supply is the amount of good that is being sold on the market by a producer. At high prices, it is more profitable for the producers to increase the supply. The demand is the quantity of the goods that the customers wish to buy at various prices. At higher prices, the consumers will have a lower demand. This is easily shown through a supply and demand graph. The invisible hand is a concept that describes unseen forces that can move an economy. This is mainly done through production, consumption, and finding an equilibrium point.
The next lecture will be about the time value of money and how interest rates work. These two topics will allow students to grasp the economic side of a project very well. We want students to understand economics as it is a factor throughout all stages of an engineering project. The time value of money is the concept that money available in the present is worth more than the same amount of money in the future. This can be attributed to interest and inflation. Interest rate is the rate at which a lender charges the borrower for money loaned. This is why people put money in a bank, and how people can get loans from a bank. During this meeting, the professor could have a great opportunity to discuss the engineering design process that they feel is best suited for this course.
On the last meeting of week four, students will be split into groups. In these groups, students will be responsible for working on a problem set. These problems will help introduce students to basic Excel skills. These basic Excel skills are not only useful to learn for organization and efficiency, but they also will meet the ES 101 module goal of introducing an engineering technology. What was learned in the week’s lecture will also be emphasized in the problems. The professor will be there for questions and guidance, but the group work aspect is important. We feel the best way to conduct this is to strongly discourage the divide and conquer method, forcing the students to interact as much as possible.
In terms of homework for this week, students have to turn in the problem set they worked on with their groups. Turning in the problem set will help make sure the students are completing work with their groups and are understanding what is being taught.
Final Project
For all ES 101 modules, an important part of the curriculum is a final project which helps to culminate the material that they have learned over the course of the module. For our final project, students will be put/choose groups of four or five and be given a prompt. The prompt for the final project will be “The small town of Lafayetteville’s current energy infrastructure is not outputting enough energy for the town. You and your team are brought in to help solve this problem. Choose an energy source from one of the four options, Solar Energy, Nuclear fusion reactors, Wind Energy, and Coal. You will construct a report which will consider the sustainability, effectiveness, community needs, ethics, policy and economic factors surrounding your energy and construct an argument for why that source will best serve the town of Layetteville”. Other information about the town will be given such as geographical location, the main source of income in the community, and other pertinent information that will help the student be able to conduct sound analysis on the community. We believe that is a great project as it will force the students to use the knowledge they have learned over the four previous weeks of the course. On top of that, the debate between non-renewable energy and renewable energy is crucial for all engineering students to have background knowledge of as many of these new solutions will be at the forefront of energy in the future. They will have to grapple with choosing a renewable energy source such as solar or wind or going with a non-renewable energy source. Educating new engineering students on the topic will help them learn more about a topic that will be a focus of their engineering education and will most likely be involved in their careers in the future.
In considering the ethics, sustainability, and community needs they will need to go back to week two of the module and look at the material covered there. This will include thinking about how the energy system will fit into a community which will draw on the case studies from Engineering and Sustainable Community Development. Along this path, they will also need to consider how this technology could go awry and potentially harm the community. This will also include how to make the energy source feel like a part of the community and something that they own, not just something that was built for them. The sustainability of the energy source also needs to be considered as you want to make sure you give the town something that will help them reduce their carbon footprint, last for a while, and still give them clean energy.
For considering the policy surrounding their energy source students will need to revisit material from week three. Here they will need to outline the process they would need to follow to get the energy source approved by the local government. Here they would also need to consider the stakeholders for the source. Who is going to fund this? How will you keep them engaged throughout the project? Here they will also need to think about the success of other energy sources like this and how they have fared in the past. This will be important as they start to construct their proposal and develop their solution. Including this in the final project is a great way for the students to start applying the topics they have learned in week three. It is one thing to discuss political factors in class but in this, they will have to brainstorm and think about how their proposed technology will affect the people of Lafayetteville and the various policies and processes for how they will implement their energy source for the town.
An economic analysis will also be done on the potential energy source solution. Here students will use information from week four to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of their solutions. They will be given data on each of the energy sources such as lifetime, initial cost, and how often replacements are needed. Using this data, they will conduct present, future, and annuity analysis to understand how much their source will cost now, 10 years from now, and how much annually it will cost the town of Layetteville to maintain and upkeep. This will allow them to conduct some technical analysis in this project and will help them understand the long-term effects of projects in a monetary context. On top of that students will also need to potentially consider how this new energy source will help improve the town of Lafayette’s economy utilizing more employment opportunities as well as helping to increase the economic output of the town. All of these different factors will help put a more technical emphasis on this project which is for the most part focused on non-technical aspects. This section of the project will allow the students to apply their knowledge of the material that they learned in week four in a real-world context.
Since the project will cover the last three weeks, set deliverables and checkpoints will be set for the students to achieve at the end of each week. As part of the first week, there will be an introductory lecture about renewable energy. This lecture will include a discussion of the 4 main energy sources Wind, Solar, Nuclear, and Coal. They will learn about the pros and cons of each energy source as well as learning about implementation costs, maintenance costs, energy output, and sustainability of each energy source. After the lecture is over, they will then be split into their groups and will be tasked with choosing the energy source that their proposal will focus on. This will involve them meeting as a group to discuss different ideas and potential options. As a part of this process, they will start conducting some research and analysis. Once they have chosen their source, they will put together an outline for their proposal. On Friday of that week, they will meet with the professor and they will give them feedback on it and how they can improve what they have done for their rough draft. The rough draft of the proposal will be due the Friday of week six. For this, the students will need to have done the majority of their research and calculations done and put them into a report which should be about fifteen pages which is seventy-five percent of what the final report will be. After turning this in and going over it with the professor they will receive a final round of feedback which they will use to construct their final presentation and report. They will have all of week seven to work and at the end of the week on Friday each group will present their presentation which will be fifteen minutes to the class. This presentation will be an oral form of their report to give the students experience in communicating an engineering report verbally which is an important skill to develop over their time in college. The students will need to submit their final report as well that day which should total in the length of about twenty pages. Through this project and over the course of these three weeks we hope these students will learn a lot about teamwork, communication, conducting engineering research, economic analysis as well as gaining skills in delivering written and verbal engineering reports.
As part of the project, students will be given information diagrams that detail the pros and cons of the sources as well as the costs.
Diagrams below.
Figure 1 as created by authors.
Figure 2 as created by authors.
ABET Accreditation
The main purpose of this course was to focus on the development of non-technical skills among engineering students, especially first years. While there is some technical analysis involved, we hope the students will gain a better understanding of how to look at problems from a socio-technical perspective. This will have been accomplished through seminar-based discussions, reading, and writing to understand the cross-section of engineering and historical, political, economic and social, and community contexts. Through their final project, these skills will be hammered home and will hopefully help shape students to apply these ways of thinking into solving other engineering problems even if they choose not to become Engineering Studies majors.
Making this course ABET-accredited would be a little bit of a challenge, but according to ABET.org under the general criterion for student outcomes, the following list shows many of the criteria that we believe our course accomplished.
- An ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability. ability to function on multidisciplinary teams; an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems;
- An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.
- An ability to communicate effectively
- An ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice. (Amadei, 2010, 87)
These ABET outcomes directly relate to our final project as well as correlate to our course outcomes. The first listed criterion about designing systems with a realistic constraint aligns with our final project where students are asked to consider different social contexts. The second criterion focuses on teamwork which is a major component of the course not only on the final project but also throughout the duration of the course as students will be asked to work in small groups to discuss questions and work on problems. This is a vital skill to learn in engineering which this course will hammer home and will further help them gain the ability to appreciate different approaches to problems.
ABET’s third criterion delves into the understanding of the ethics of engineering. This is also touched on in our course in the second week as we delve into community-centered engineering as well as discussing case studies which we help will give students a background to continue to view problems from this lens in their future endeavors. The next criterion focuses on effective communication. This will be accomplished in our course through multiple writing assignments as well as the final presentation and final paper. The final criterion that will be met is learning techniques skills and modern engineering tools. While this is not as much of a technical course as others, students will still be getting exposure to technical skills. These will be covered mostly during week four where we delve into engineering economics where students will learn how to use equivalence factors as well as get some experience in excel. By achieving these outcomes students will have gotten a well-rounded introduction to engineering which will give them vital skills as they begin their engineering careers.
To read our syllabus, click here!