Integration of a short-term international humanitarian engineering experience into engineering undergraduate studies

Abstract

Many of the humanitarian engineering education initiatives in Australia are developed and supported by Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB-A). These include the EWB Challenge, an embedded first year coursework program, and the Undergraduate Research Program, providing service-learning opportunities for later year individual or group projects. These represent the extremes of an undergraduate degree, leaving a significant gap in the program for a student interested in humanitarian engineering. A link is required to support student learning in humanitarian engineering between these extremes. To fill, the EWB Humanitarian Design Summits were developed. These are two-week international experiences combining facilitated workshops, cultural experiences and a community visit. They provide opportunities for students to engage in a scaffolded community based humanitarian engineering experience. They are available to mid-program students to optional take and are designed to be a lead into later year service-learning projects. At one Australian university a range of curriculum methods have been used to incorporate the experience into students' formal program including work experience, research projects and a for-credit course. These have created different outcomes, with those more tightly integrated into a students' program providing greater opportunities for student learning.