UNDERGRADUATE SERVICE-LEARNING ENGINEERING DESIGN PROJECTS IN ECUADOR

Abstract

International exposure as well as project-basedservice learning for undergraduate students have gainedmuch attention for their positive impact on students.Additionally, ABET engineering criteria requireinternational exposure for all undergraduates. As such, agoal of the University of Pittsburgh is to have fifty percent ofour students directly participate in an internationalexperience. Over the past few years the university hasoffered a freshmen service-learning engineering course.This has provided evidence that service learning is avaluable educational tool to develop a sense of value anddirection, teach team dynamics and communication skills,and engage the students in a community. This paper willdiscuss a new senior cap stone service learning engineeringcourse with an international component. Over this springsemester, undergraduate students will be given theopportunity to design a potable water system for a poor,rural Ecuadorian village that currently does not have areliable water source.Index Terms – Cross-cultural understanding, ServiceLearning, Senior Design, Engineering Education.