Conference Session

Innovations in Materials Education

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Qu Jin, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Senay Purzer, Purdue University, West Lafayette; P.K. Imbrie, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Tagged Divisions

Materials

American Society for Engineering Education, 2012 Measuring First Year Engineering Students’ Knowledge and Interest in Materials Science and EngineeringAbstract Previous studies have shown that engineering students were generally not very familiarwith Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). However, career decision theories suggest thatpeople need to be both knowledgeable and interested towards a career in order to make aninformed career choice. The purpose of this study was to measure first-year engineeringstudents’ knowledge and interest in MSE, and to compare the results from students who choseMSE as their major and students who did not. Open ended questions and a Likert-scale surveywere used to collect data from

Conference Session

Outreach Activities and Introductory Materials Engineering

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Peter R. Hondred, Iowa State University; Karri M. Haen, Iowa State University; Adah Leshem, Iowa State University; Michael R. Kessler, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

Materials

degrees and careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) related fields.Currently, the pool of engineers in the United States is undersized to meet the needs of our society andeconomy [1]. If current trends do not change, the demand for engineers will surpass the supply ofengineers in the US [2]. A startling number of students in the US are failing to pass science benchmark standards at a Page 25.863.2proficient level. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, fewer than 1 out of 3students perform at or above the proficiency level in 8th grade science [3]. Students from low income andunderrepresented

Conference Session

Outreach Activities and Introductory Materials Engineering

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amber L. Genau, University of Alabama, Birmingham

Tagged Divisions

Materials

willconsider as a future career. Student contact information will be kept and follow-up surveys willbe sent to past participants to find out what role, if any, the program had in helping the studentschoose a college and field of study. The incoming classes of UAB students will be checkedagainst the list of Materials Camp alumni to determine how many of the camp participants havechosen to enroll at UAB, how many enter STEM disciplines, and how many select MSE inparticular.As department budgets continue to tighten, continued funding of Materials Camp while keepingit free for participants will be a challenge. An important source of support for the 2012 campwill be the American Society of Materials Education Foundation, which generally funds onethird of

Conference Session

Active Learning and Demonstrations in Materials Education

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Barry Dupen, Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne

Tagged Divisions

Materials

past the middle of the semester, there wasnot enough time to accomplish all three tasks, and none of the submitted designs met the full setof design criteria. If the project had been introduced early in the semester as a required part ofthe curriculum, the students earning an A or B for the course would have submitted designswhich would have been more likely to meet the criteria.Freshman design projects are necessarily a gamble; students are asked to design a structure ormachine before taking any mechanical design courses, so the results are often strong in conceptbut weak in technical soundness. Clearly, juniors or seniors would have developed betterdesigns. However, by exposing freshmen to a design problem early in their academic careers