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Disaster Mitigating Design And Practice: A Student Centered Program Developing Sustainable And Earthquake Resistant Designs For Residential Structures In Developing Regions

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Conference

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Honolulu, Hawaii

Publication Date

June 24, 2007

Start Date

June 24, 2007

End Date

June 27, 2007

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Innovation in Construction Engineering Education II

Tagged Division

Construction

Page Count

14

Page Numbers

12.550.1 - 12.550.14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--2138

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/2138

Download Count

548

Paper Authors

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Gunnar Lucko Catholic University of America

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Gunnar Lucko, Ph.D. is an assistant professor and director of the Construction Engineering and Management program in the Department of Civil Engineering at The Catholic University of America. His research interests include network scheduling, construction operations simulation and optimization, equipment economics, constructability analysis, and innovative teaching methods. He has studied statistical equipment valuation models and has participated in research for the Construction Industry Institute and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Allicance. His e-mail address is and his web address is .

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Panagiotis Tsopelas Catholic University of America

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Timothy Garland Catholic University of America

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Timothy J. Garland is a senior student in the Department of Civil Engineering at The Catholic University of America.

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Rodrigo Gonzalez Catholic University of America

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Rodrigo González Rugelli is a graduate student in the Department of Civil Engineering at The Catholic University of America.

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Thomas Lee Catholic University of America

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Thomas M. Lee, Jr. is a junior student in the Department of Civil Engineering at The Catholic University of America.

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Justin Molineaux Catholic University of America

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Justin P. Molineaux is a senior student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The Catholic University of America.

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Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Disaster-Mitigating Design and Practice: A Student-Centered Program Developing Sustainable and Earthquake-Resistant Designs for Residential Structures in Developing Regions Abstract

Earthquakes frequently strike the neediest regions of the planet with devastating consequences for their inhabitants. Impacts of such disasters extend beyond the immediate casualties, which may reach several 10,000, including the destruction of residential and commercial property and infrastructure, which severely weakens the regional economy in the longer term. Simple residential dwellings from adobe, brick, or un-reinforced concrete blocks, which are the predominant structures in significant portions of the reviewed developing regions, are frequently damaged to structural failure and collapse by earthquakes, which may obliterate entire villages and their livelihood within minutes.

Designing such small residential structures to be more resistant to earthquake loads, followed by physical testing of scaled models and implementing the design concepts in an actual prototype are the objectives of the program development for a two-semester course sequence that is currently being undertaken by the authors. This program began when guest presentations by Peace Corps alumni and the founder of Engineers Without Borders caused the students and their faculty mentors to realize that the traditional course of study in civil engineering did not sufficiently prepare them for addressing engineering problems within a global context. Since then, an introductory course on sustainability has been added to the curriculum and the students have founded a student chapter that has begun to participate in organizing the outreach to a partner community in a developing region.

In a new course sequence on disaster-mitigating design and practice, the undergraduate civil engineering and architecture students are working together in entrepreneurially oriented teams. Faculty members and representatives from industry and from foreign aid organizations are collaborating in guiding the courses. The course activities address several accreditation outcomes, have been structured to expose students to all six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives, and accommodate different learning styles. Active student participation in the course, including setting intermediate objectives, performing, presenting, and critiquing their literature review, creative design work, and testing in the laboratory are essential to the coursework. The features of this student-centered learning environment are presented along with recommendations for implementing learning experiences that groom globally aware and socially engaged young engineers.

Background and Development

Several years ago two alumni of the university gave a guest presentation about their two years of Peace Corps work in Central America to improve the access to clean water for the particular community. More recently, the founder of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) presented his vision of “building a better World, one community at a time” through this organization of student and professional chapters that reach out to partner communities in developing regions and work

Lucko, G., & Tsopelas, P., & Garland, T., & Gonzalez, R., & Lee, T., & Molineaux, J. (2007, June), Disaster Mitigating Design And Practice: A Student Centered Program Developing Sustainable And Earthquake Resistant Designs For Residential Structures In Developing Regions Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2138

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