Service Learning: A Bridge to Engineering for Underrepresented Minorities

Abstract

Female, Black, Latino and Native American students are underrepresented in the STEM pipeline. Finding ways to increase underrepresented populations in STEM fields continues to be a major initiative in education. Many underrepresented student groups express a strong orientation toward service and community engagement. Informal Science Education (ISE) can be structured to include community engagement and to engage learners’ interest and enhance their understanding of the theory and practice of science. Service learning is a strategy that can be used within an ISE pedagogy to highlight how engineering acts as a community engaged vocation. This report describes a service learning project that exposed underrepresented high school aged students to engineering via a community service activity in which students built irrigation equipment for use in a community garden. The objective of the project was to use the context of service learning to motivate high school students to consider STEM majors. To describe the impact of informal science education through service learning, a qualitative study was also conducted. Three themes emerged: experiential learning (learning while doing), broadening perspective and identity as performance. Lessons learned and strategies for improving the service learning design are also discussed.

Work in Progress: Involving Teachers in International Community Engaged Learning Projects to Enhance their Understanding of Engineering and Intercultural Awareness

“…This may be why CEL attracts females at a rate three times that of their male counterparts. A similar trend has been noted for other underrepresented populations in engineering, such as African Americans, Latino/Latinas, and Native American [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Furthermore, Zarske, et al found that project-based CEL design experiences have a significant positive impact on the identity and self-efficacy of all students, but a greater impact on women and minority students when compared to Caucasian males [7].…”

“…It is well established that the United States (US) has a need for enhanced participation as well as increased racial and gender diversity in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, particularly engineering [1][2][3][4]. Farinde, Tempest and Merriweather (2014) report that careers that are perceived to help humanity with high levels of community engagement may be more attractive to African American, Latino/Latina, Native American and females [5]. Engineering Community Engaged Learning (CEL) is an excellent way to help those involved in these experiences to understand how engineering, as well as other STEM careers, can have a high level of community engagement, can be used to help humanity, require creativity and are personally rewarding careers.…”

“…Unfortunately, many teachers either have little knowledge of the field of engineering or have misconceptions about the field such as failing to identify engineering as a career that helps humanity [14][15]. This is unfortunate since teachers can subconsciously pass on these misconceptions to their students and, as described above, careers that are perceived to help humanity with high levels of community engagement may be more attractive to females and underrepresented populations [5]. Therefore, in order for the US to achieve greater participation as well as increased racial and gender diversity in STEM, it is critical that teachers are provided with opportunities to engage in professional development that helps increase their understanding of engineering as a career field [16,17].…”

Community engagement in engineering education: A systematic literature review

“…Of 120 reviewed articles, 49 (40.8%) mentioned that students made international travel to conduct their community engagement projects in other countries (e.g., Johnson & Johnson, 2008;Lewis et al, 2016). Time constraint was an important factor affecting students' community engagement: 21 articles had mentioned it (e.g., Farinde et al, 2014;Lewis, 2014). For community engagement to be educative, considerable time should be involved (Kolb, 1984).…”

Usage of Miniature Houses Built using Construction Materials in Engineering Educational Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programs

“…This type of program was implemented by Farinde, Tempest and Merriweather in 2014, in the United States [11]. The program called Bridge to Engineering was planned as an ISE (Informal Science Education) for underrepresented high school students with engineering students as mentors [11].…”