Airplanes for everyone: A general education course for non-engineers

Journal of Engineering Education, Jan 2000 by Eberhardt, Scott

ABSTRACT

The Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, at the Universityof Washington, has introduced a new course to non-engineering students. This course is distinguished by the fact that it is specifically designed for non-engineering/science students. The course, Called AA101: Air and Space Vehicles, fulfills a "natural world" graduation requirement for University undergraduates. This course has proven so popular that after the first offering it has filled the auditorium and all lab sections every quarter. It is now being offered three quarters ayear.

AA101 includes hands-on learning, multi-media presentations, and classroom demonstrations. Lab sections each week demonstrate principles learned in class and are usually centered about a fun activity. Examples include learning to fly with Microsoft Flight Simulator, building a rubber powered balsa airplane, and launching water rockets. In several ofthese activities, teamwork is stressed.

A conscious decision in the creation ofthe course was to eliminate analysis in order to attract the broadest audience. Graduates of AA101 are thus familiar with the concepts but cannot apply analytical tools to aerospace engineering.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Aerospace industry employs a large number of people. Only a fraction of these people are engineers. Pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, buyers, and administrators are all part of the broader aerospace industry. In the Pacific Northwest aerospace is a major business player. First, there is Boeing, which employs approximately 100,000 in the Puget Sound area. Alaska Airlines has its headquarters in Seattle and many other airlines operate hubs. The FAA has a regional center in Seattle. Therefore, in addition to educating future engineers, the University of Washington has a responsibility to educate the greater number of future employees in the aerospace field who will not be engineers.

AA101: Air and Space Vehicles is a course that recognizes this "other" group of employees of the aerospace industry. Many have education backgrounds that do not stress math, science, or technology. These employees know little of the engineering that goes into the products they sell, use or support. AA101 makes an attempt at providing an overview for these future employees.

The idea of teaching engineering and technology to non-engineering/science majors is not new. Recently, an outline for organizing technology literacy courses appeared in the Journal of EngineeringEducation.1 In this paper, by Nan Byars, the issue of mathematics in technology literacy courses is introduced. The emphasis seems to be on how to introduce math as opposed to whether to introduce math. AA101 is designed keeping in mind that the students will not be involved in engineering analysis. Therefore a conscious decision was made to introduce the concepts without the use of analysis.

This paper will discuss lessons learned from teaching this course over the last two years. Discussions include the student body, expected outcomes, hands-on lab activities and a few tips that have been learned teaching the course.

II. THE STUDENTS

Engineering educators seldom appreciate the select group of students they teach. In addition to departmental selection that may include admissions standards, test scores and other metrics, there is self-selection. To major in engineering usually requires a student to make a decision as early as high school. Students must be prepared to enter calculus and physics their freshman year. At the University of Washington, over 60% of the student body do not meet this basic qualification.

A significant part of today's culture is a fear of math. The "I hate math" syndrome starts early and prevails through adulthood. If students believes a course has any math content, they will frequently choose another course. A difficult point to accept as an engineering educator is just what is meant by math to most people. As AA101 was in conceptual design, "no math" meant "no calculus." Very quickly it was discovered that a large number of students have trouble with any symbolic math. The students are quite capable of problem solving but they become frightened when the concept turns into a symbolic equation. "become frightened" is synonymous with "this class isn't for me."

Nevertheless, these students who are prepared differently then our typical engineering students are quite bright. In the book "They're Not Dumb, They're Different",2 Sheila Tobias shows how students who are comfortable in a different learning environment can do well in science courses. These students just do not "think" the same way as their science-oriented colleagues. One result from our experience teaching AA101 is the discovery that performance is fairly independent of declared majors. The pre-engineering students do not out-perform the liberal arts majors as a rule.

Another challenge is that AA101 is a freshman level course. Most engineering educators deal with upper division courses. Serving as the transition from high school to college is a bigger challenge than anticipated. First, students are not well prepared for University level work. Second, the students believe that if they do the work, they will get a high grade. Performance and quality have rarely been used as evaluation criteria. Third, students are away from home for the first time and learning about independence. Unfortunately, this lesson in life occurs at the expense of their studies.