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University Library Services to Engineering Summer Campers

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Conference

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Columbus, Ohio

Publication Date

June 24, 2017

Start Date

June 24, 2017

End Date

June 28, 2017

Conference Session

Technical Session 3: History and Future of Engineering Librarianship

Tagged Division

Engineering Libraries

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

12

DOI

10.18260/1-2--29060

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/29060

Download Count

609

Paper Authors

biography

Julie Arendt Virginia Commonwealth University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-6191-7117

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Julie Arendt is a Science and Engineering Research Librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to coming to VCU, she was a science and engineering librarian at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She received her M.S.I. from the University of Michigan and her B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In her research, Ms. Arendt is interested in the relationship among library services, open access, and scholarly impact.

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biography

Rosalyn Hobson Hargraves Virginia Commonwealth University

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Dr. Rosalyn Hobson Hargraves holds a joint appointment in the Schools of Education and Engineering as Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning and Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia. Her research interests are in STEM education, biomedical signal and image processing, and machine learning. She has been awarded the Dominion Strong Men & Women Excellence in Leadership Award, Richmond Joint Engineers Council Engineer of the Year, AAAS Diplomacy Fellowship, and the NSBE Janice Lumpkin Educator of the Year Award.

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biography

Martha I. Roseberry Virginia Commonwealth University

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Martha Roseberry is a Science and Engineering Research Librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her M.L.I.S from Kent State University and her B.A from the College of Wooster. Her research has focused on promoting and improving library services to academic communities.

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Abstract

Over the summer, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Engineering and a local youth center host an engineering day camp for rising sixth, seventh, and eighth graders to explore engineering and innovation. Students in this 5-day program develop an idea for an invention, explore the science behind it and existing products relevant to the idea, develop a budget for building the invention, build it, and present their ideas at an end-of-camp pitch session. On day two, students come to the library. They use both library and open web resources to find information about the science, about related products on the market, and (as time permits) to gather prices for parts of their inventions. The library’s involvement has evolved as the librarians have learned about what information and activities are effective for a middle school audience. Some of these lessons apply to any teaching situation – e.g. active learning is generally more effective than pure lecture. Other lessons learned are specific to this context and age group. Because middle schoolers are developmentally different from older children and young adults and because camp is different from school, simply adapting classroom activities did not fully address the needs of the campers.

Other challenges to the library’s participation in this summer program related to sometimes conflicting aims within the missions and visions of the university and the library. While both the university and its libraries consider the community in their goals and plans, they are designed as organizations for higher education. Given limited resources, service to primary and secondary students, even in a university-affiliated program, could come into conflict with the core needs of university students, faculty, and staff.

Arendt, J., & Hargraves, R. H., & Roseberry, M. I. (2017, June), University Library Services to Engineering Summer Campers Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--29060

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