Undergraduate environmental engineering research experiences in a predominantly undergraduate teaching institute

Abstract

Undergraduate research experience broadens the educational experiences of environmental engineering graduates by preparing students for industry and graduate school and by enabling them to utilize their class room understanding to solve real world problems. The research experience in our undergraduate environmental engineering program offers the students an invaluable opportunity to work on sophisticated analytical instruments, hands-on experimental design, data analysis and interpretation, and also helps them hone their technical writing skills to meet the demands of graduate school and future employers. Furthermore, the addition of a research experience to a core environmental engineering curriculum provides an excellent means of not only teaching, but also assessing a large number of environmental engineering criteria outlined by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) including the ability to conduct laboratory experiments and the ability to critically analyze and interpret data in more than one major environmental engineering focus area. This paper discusses three environmental engineering undergraduate research projects that were funded through internal grants and completed between 2009 and 2011 by individual students under the mentorship of environmental engineering faculty. At the completion of their research projects, students presented their research work through a variety of poster presentations at symposiums and conferences and through publication in peer reviewed technical journals. The research experience, research methodology, problem formulation, difficulties encountered and lessons learned, along with the respective roles of undergraduate researcher and faculty mentor are presented. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.