Board 381: Serving Community Needs while Sharpening Engineering Skills

This paper reports on a novel experiential course, Service Learning in STEM, which aimed to create opportunities for students to apply their technical skills to community-based problems. The course has been piloted as part of the Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) Honors program. Incorporating service projects as part of required curriculum ensures that all students have access without the burden of additional credit hours. Moreover, the innovative partnership with career services has brought a diverse group of non-profit agencies from the local area to the program through its existing relationships. Agencies present their projects and students choose; 5-6 teams are assigned to each project. Projects vary from term to term. Examples include: coordinating Hack-a-thon on 3D modeling, creating digital tools to spread awareness on human trafficking, building a trebuchet by using mechanics and physics behind it, building a balloon powered cardboard car or constructing a digital map for circular economy programs to divert waste from landfills. Weekly meetings between agency and team are coordinated by a student team leader and held to co-develop the process, deliverables, timeline and implementation plans. Students complete bi-weekly personal journal reflections to unpack their experience throughout the term. Projects are presented at the end of the term with agency representatives attending. Peer evaluations are conducted, as well as periodic surveys and focus groups to understand the efficacy of the experiences for both students and community partners. Students report high satisfaction with the experience, pointing to several gains: deeper understanding of the plight of communities in need (e.g., homeless, seniors, underprivileged kids), skills they honed during the project (e.g., essential skills such as organizational, communication, presentation, teamwork, creative problem solving, perseverance, leadership), and technical skills (e.g., project design, data collection, analysis, visualization, project management), along with the feelings of pride and personal fulfillment from the intrinsic rewards of seeing their positive impact. Community partners appreciate the intensive project work, and the deeper connections they make with the institution. While feedback from students and community partners is overwhelmingly positive, a surprising finding was that students prefer educational and social justice projects (~78%), not necessarily those involving highly technical problem solving. Future iterations of the offering will require deeper interrogation of these preferences.