Developing Engineering Environments for Fostering Effective Critical Thinking Through Measurements.

Drs. Caicedo, Flora, Nichols and Pierce were awarded a two year NSF project for $199,431 for class and curriculum improvement. The project is in collaboration with Briana Timmerman, a professor in Biology at USC, and Wiley Graf and Richard Watkins from Midlands Technical College (MTC). The project focuses in the development, application and evaluation of Environments For Fostering Effective Critical Thinking (EFFECTs). EFFECTs are currently being developed in water resources, environmental engineering, structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, transportation engineering and surveying using real life problems, hands on experiments and inquiry based teaching. These teaching modules will be used to teach key concept at different classes through the curriculum at USC and MTC. The new class ECIV 101 – Introduction to Civil Engineering will be the focus of this implementation at USC. During this class students will explore solutions to questions such as “what are the dimensions for an activated carbon filter for a small water treatment system?” and “How many cubic feet of soil do you need to construct a levee in the Mississippi river?” and using hands on experiences and sensors. With this class the PIs not only expect to improve critical thinking among students at an early stage but to improve retention rates among freshman and introduce Civil Engineering to undeclared students.