Go With the Flow - A Student Leadership Opportunity Integrating K-12 Outreach, the Society of Women Engineers, Service Learning and Peer Mentoring

摘要

This paper describes a multi-year project that involved the Humboldt State University Student Section of the Society of Women Engineers in a Service Learning project that now serves as a continuous outreach project to young children in the community. The SWE club oversaw the design, construction and use of a child sized flume for study of water physics that is now on display at a local children's science museum. Students in 3 different engineering classes that were offered repeatedly over 5 semesters were directly impacted by the project. Engineering students in a fluid mechanics class designed the flume via a SWE supported design competition. The SWE club then raised funds for the construction of the flume, which was built by the engineering department technician. The project was integrated into two other engineering courses in such a manner that senior engineering students worked with first year students as part of the same project. SWE members as well as other engineering students then took the flume to local schools and outreach events. The SWE students experienced fund raising, project management, and teaching K-12th grade physical science concepts. K-12th grade students were exposed to female engineering role models. Over 150 engineering students, as well as 3 engineering faculty were involved in the project in some capacity. 750 local children were exposed to the flume during SWE outreach activities. This project model could be used in other fields of engineering. This project incorporates K-12 outreach, Service Learning, peer mentoring and extracurricular service.