Identifying and naming inorganic compounds is sometimes a challenge for many first-year chemistry and engineering students; however, these difficulties can be overcome after extensive practice using homework sets based on naming inorganic compounds or applying inorganic nomenclature rules. Werner is a card game in honor of Professor Alfred Werner…

Quantitative literacy is the ability to solve problems using mathematical and statistical information that is represented in various forms, including visual, written and mathematical forms. It is central to many of the disciplines within higher education. In this paper, we examine a particular quantitative literacy event within an undergraduate…

Engineering byDesign™ (EbD) provides teachers and students with reflective, formative, and comprehensive summative assessment tools throughout the curriculum. Each lesson, unit, and course is created with a list of essential questions that are meant to guide students to a deeper understanding of national standards across the STEM domains (STL,…

Sustainability has emerged as a primary context for engineering education in the 21st Century, particularly the sub-discipline of chemical engineering. However, there is confusion over how to go about integrating sustainability knowledge and skills systemically within bachelor degrees. This paper addresses this challenge, using a case study of an…

In 2005, West Virginia science and education leaders developed a strategic plan entitled: "Vision 2015: The West Virginia Science and Technology Strategic Plan." The plan is comprised of five (5) target areas for infrastructure development, with 14 goals for action by designated leaders from higher education, state government, and…

This article investigates the mechanisms through which undergraduate research experiences for community college students can have second-order and multiplier effects on other students and home community college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments and thus build STEM pipeline capacity. Focus groups with the science…

A simple experiment to reveal the dimension of the pore space in sponges is proposed. This experiment is suitable for the first year of a physics or engineering course. The calculated dimension of the void space in a sponge of density 16 mg cm[superscript -3] was 2.948 [plus or minus] 0.008. (Contains 2 figures.)

Our classrooms are filled with engineering majors who take a semester-long course in static equilibrium. Many students find this class too challenging and drop their engineering major. In our introductory physics class, we often breeze through static equilibrium; to physicists equilibrium is just a special case of Newton's second law. While it is…

This article reports the results of a series of site visits examining modifications to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning based on reform on three differing campuses. Innovations in stem classrooms included collaborative approaches to learning; incorporation of active learning, authentic contexts, peer…

This paper presents the development and implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in an engineering thermodynamics course at Kettering University. In this project, the thermodynamics course was restructured as modules presenting practical applications first, whereas principles were introduced just-in-time and as encountered. Theoretical…

The author scrutinizes the National Academy of Sciences report "Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering" and its dangerous call to place the sciences under the sledgehammer of Title IX. Her findings: A one-sided, inaccurate, and internally contradictory report prepared by a…

There is a growing consensus that traditional instruction in basic science courses, in institutions of higher learning, do not lead to the desired results. Most of the students who complete these courses do not gain deep knowledge about the basic concepts and develop a negative approach to the sciences. In order to deal with this problem, a…

This study investigates opportunities for conducting electrical engineering experiments via the Internet rather than in an actual laboratory. Eighty-four French students of electrical engineering (semester 1, 2004) at Bordeaux University 1 participated in practical courses. Half of the students performed experiments in a laboratory while the other…

Describes the structure of an in-depth laboratory project chemical engineering. Provides modeling work to guide experimentation and experimental work on heat transfer analysis. Discusses the experimental results and evaluation of the project. (YP)

This study is based on two surveys, one mailed to over 23,000 Washington, D.C. area engineers comprising the area membership of eight engineering professional societies and another sent to several thousand area organizations considered likely to employ engineers. In addition to assessing specific needs for various kinds of engineering education,…