There have been multiple uses of the term educational engineer. Some define an educational engineer as an educator who teaches engineering exclusively. Others define an educational engineer as a someone who works outside the classroom altogether, doing research and making decisions about curricula (Anderson, 1961; Charters, 1945; Rudinskiy et al.,…

Background: Understanding the nature of engineering is important for shaping engineering education, especially precollege education. While much research has established the pedagogical benefits of teaching engineering in kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12), the philosophical foundations of engineering remain under-examined. Purpose: This…

Model-eliciting activities (MEAs) challenge students to interpret a problem and collaboratively create solutions using the engineering design process. This Innovation to Practice article describes how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teacher educators can use MEAs to build elementary teachers' understanding of computational…

This paper provides a novel instructional methodology that is designed to conceptually address the four main challenges faced by 21st century students, who must learn in a multitude of educational settings (face to face, hybrid and online). The online learning neuroscience supported instructional methodology detailed in this article also provides…

This article describes the NASA-Funded Space Grant Project BOREALIS: "Balloon Outreach, Research, Exploration, and Landscape Imaging System." BOREALIS conducts high-altitude balloon flights to the "edge of space" with flights typically reaching 100,000 feet and a current record flight in the summer of 2020 that reached 126,000…

This study presents a rollercoaster activity including virtual reality and following the six-steps engineering design process. In the study, a real-life problem involving a rollercoaster accident was given to 12 pre-service science teachers first. The participants were then asked to imagine, plan, create, and test a rollercoaster without an…

In many mechanical engineering undergraduate curriculums, there are topics that are vital to the students' future careers in the manufacturing and design workforce that are not taught in-depth. As one of those topics, Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing, or GD&T, is vital to companies who develop and manufacture products because it allows…

A useful project is identified for the semester-four diploma students in their final workshop of mechanical engineering program in the school of engineering at Australian college of Kuwait (ACK). ACK is putting significant emphasis in project based learning (PBL) and is developing new courses for both diploma and degree programs according to PBL…

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced challenges to delivering laboratory-based STEM curricula. This study evaluates students' learning experience in a synchronous team design activity within the laboratory component of an undergraduate Computer Engineering course during the pandemic. Using the EduPad digital platform, students collaborated in…

In undergraduate chemistry curricula that include computational modeling, students may gain first-hand experience in both introductory and advanced applications of this technique. However, although students can be exposed to the predictive power of computational work, its capabilities are often limited to determining the intrinsic properties of…

With a motivation to immerse students in engineering design, graphics communication, and computer aided design (CAD) skills early-on in the biomedical engineering curriculum, we launched a new 2-unit laboratory course on "Graphics Design in BME" in the Spring 2020 quarter for UC Davis sophomores. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the course…

In this article, the authors explain how they leveraged the popularity of the "Star Wars" franchise to introduce a task steeped in popular culture as a fun way to engage their students in investigating complex mathematics that have real-life connections to careers in toy design and engineering design in general. The authors share various…

Access to drinking water is becoming more limited as drought persists across continents. This article highlights a particularly impacted group of students due to increasing drought conditions and upstream river pollution near their reservation. While there are related water and modeling standards across the K-12 Next Generation Science Standards…

Young children love opportunities to build, discover, and solve problems. Teachers can take advantage of these natural tendencies by introducing students to aspects of engineering design while they engage in classroom activities. Engineering also lends itself to supporting students in developing disciplinary literacy practices such as learning…

In engineering, teachers can push even the youngest learners to think critically and create something that reflects the function of the real thing. When children create, they often make a representation of something--a crayon-drawn stick-figure family or a butterfly life cycle represented with pasta--that is based on appearance. Their questions…