Conference Session

Project-Based Service Learning

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Beverly Jaeger, Northeastern University; Ethan LaRochelle, Northeastern University

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

Page 14.597.4of their involvement can be difficult, but initial findings demonstrate that there are a wide rangeof benefits to more appropriately justify the work involved in participating. The project-basedmodel of programs like EWB gives students the opportunity to apply many hard skills while alsoemphasizing the development of soft skills. The major focus of the first-phase survey employedin this study was to identify the impact EWB has on developing soft skills and the second phasesurvey combined both hard-skill and soft-skill inquiries. The coupling of these skill-sets is anecessity for the education of engineers in today’s society making them a more valuable resourcefor the field of employment the students subsequently enter [3

Conference Session

Project-Based Service Learning

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Chris Swan, Tufts University; Mary McCormick, Tufts University

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

individual and group environment results indicates that this sample of PBSL students havestronger problem-solving and professional skills, and are able to outperform the students whohave had predominantly classroom-based education.It can be inferred that PBSL students’ technical (hard) and professional (soft) skills were moreadvanced than NPBSL students’ skills because their out-of-classroom experiences had catalyzedand strengthened development of abilities ranging from cognitive thinking to social interactionand moral reasoning. With each new experience, students learned how to adapt to unexpectedenvironmental constraints and developed the necessary technical and non-technical skills toovercome conflicts. Consequently, many of the students became

Conference Session

Environmental Engineering Curricula

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Angela Bielefeldt, University of Colorado, Boulder

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering