Engineers without borders: Experiential education

TY - JOUR

T1 - Engineers without borders

T2 - 2009 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition

AU - Everett, Jess

AU - Mehta, Yusuf

AU - Wyrick, Joshua R.

AU - Perez-Colon, Maria

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - An Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Club has operated at our University for approximately 6 years, conducting projects in Asia, Africa, Central America, and North America. EWB projects are completed cooperatively between club members and students enrolled in an experiential learning course required by the engineering curriculum. EWB projects provide real world experiences where students are called upon to use all their book knowledge, common sense and resourcefulness to make a significant contribution to project goals. Students work in multidisciplinary teams. They are responsible for interacting with clients, conducting assessment trips, designing solutions, making recommendations, producing engineering reports and drawings, making presentations, raising funds, and supervising and participating in construction. The projects introduce student to the triple bottom line, i.e., projects must work at environmental, economic, and social levels. The purpose of this paper is to describe the benefits of incorporating EWB projects into the engineering curriculum. In order to do this, three projects are described in detail, in Senegal, El Salvador, and The Gambia.

AB - An Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Club has operated at our University for approximately 6 years, conducting projects in Asia, Africa, Central America, and North America. EWB projects are completed cooperatively between club members and students enrolled in an experiential learning course required by the engineering curriculum. EWB projects provide real world experiences where students are called upon to use all their book knowledge, common sense and resourcefulness to make a significant contribution to project goals. Students work in multidisciplinary teams. They are responsible for interacting with clients, conducting assessment trips, designing solutions, making recommendations, producing engineering reports and drawings, making presentations, raising funds, and supervising and participating in construction. The projects introduce student to the triple bottom line, i.e., projects must work at environmental, economic, and social levels. The purpose of this paper is to describe the benefits of incorporating EWB projects into the engineering curriculum. In order to do this, three projects are described in detail, in Senegal, El Salvador, and The Gambia.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029033705&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85029033705&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Conference article

SN - 2153-5965

JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings

JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings

Y2 - 14 June 2009 through 17 June 2009

ER -