Our planet is facing enormous challenges of pollution, Global Warming and Climate Change, Healthy Food Production, lack of Sustainable Energy. For survival of mankind for many generations to come, it is critical to create next generation of Smart Science and Engineering Education & Training for future scientists and engineers. With proper education and training they will be able to solve the world's most important issue related to environment, health, energy, weather change and global worming.
Eduard,
I would like to believe that we are getting close to a solution within Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries (CEDC) that will answer your question. CEDC's mission is to work with local communities in the Central Plateau of Haiti to develop sustainable solutions that improve the quality of life through interdisciplinary student-led initiatives that embody our core values in partnership with Clemson University, non-profit organizations, and industry.
The three key factors to CEDC's successes are project based learning, operating within a corporate simulation, and motivation. The program has been a labor of love since 2009 and is getting better each semester. For example, we initially thought that we could only use seniors and graduate students to work on the projects, we tried to become evergreen but students kept graduating/leaving; we now bring students in as freshmen straight out of high school and last year we had our first batch that stayed in the program for 7 or 8 semesters - these students were carved out of wood.
Attached below are several documents that should further explain the program, the projects, and the hint at some of the student outcomes.
https://www.researchgate.net/project/Clemson-Engineers-for-Developing-Countries
Conference Paper Encouraging Innovation through Design in Resource Constraine...
Conference Paper Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries - Summit - Fall 2017
Article Increasing Student Development Through Multi-Level Immersive...
Article Developing Rural Water Systems in Haiti: An Evaluation of th...
Article Engineering Sustainable Aquaculture in Rural Haiti: A Case Study
Conference Paper Enhancing Students' Learning Experiences through Translation...
Please let me know your thoughts and if you have any questions.
FYI - This type of program could be refocused in just about any direction.
Sincerely,
David Vaughn
Eduard,
Well, it is a matter of integrated thinking about the correct choice for education and training of the next generation. I think that making the students/graduates feel the driving force to proceed harvesting the information in their corresponding disciplines is the challenge. No matter what will be the suitable way to solve this, I think it will improve the students skills and creativity. Involving all the stack holders in the design of next generation education is also very important. I always encourage my students to practice self learning but with limited success because still they depends totally on the lectures and tutorials. Let us be honest that part of the problem come from the lecturers who do not let the student use their minds for creativity. In conclusion, your question is really very important and I hope we can get useful answers to develop ourselves and our teaching strategies.
Schools curriculum should be design in a way that each department courses converge into a framework that can sustain the next generation products and services. Inter-disciplinary studies should be encourage by stakeholders in educational sector. Also, industries should be able to share their problems with academic communities while they provide solutions that are sustainable.
I agree with Desmond and will add that in an interdisciplinary curriculum we often abandon the arts (e.g.: poetry, music, paintings and more) because we think non-applicable to science and technology curricula. Only when curricula in primary and secondary education will become more holistic in their design, then I think that society will be able to inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers with a higher level of imagination and creativity, capable of tackling more effectively our present and foreseeable problems.
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