Peter Westin, Ben Laugelli, Doulgass Reed, W. Bernard Carlson
University of Virginia
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The University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) requires all first-year students to enroll in an introductory course in the Department of Engineering and Society titled “Science, Technology, and Contemporary Issues.” There, students learn about the social context in which the work of the engineer takes place as they cultivate oral and written communication skills critical to their professional development. One of the unique challenges in teaching the course is to orient its content and assignments toward the learning needs of engineering students and not students of the humanities in general. To accomplish this goal, we focus the course on great inventions that changed the world and offer lab sections that give students practical experience with invention.
In lectures students not only learn about historically important inventions but also the complex interaction of new technologies with the social context in which they were developed and used. To complement the theme of great inventions, labs give students firsthand experience with new technologies. For example, as students learn of celestial navigation technologies associated with Prince Henry, in lab they build a rudimentary inclinometer and use it to calculate the height of a flagpole on campus. Likewise, the major assignments in the course integrate the focus on technological inventions with the professionalization of future engineers. Throughout the semester students keep an idea notebook like those used by Thomas Edison. Students then orally present ideas to a small group of their peers. From there the group selects one idea and writes a provisional patent application that includes a technical description and an argument why their idea is more useful than similar patented technologies.
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