The Games We Play, Qualitative And Quantitative Assessment From A 9 12 Engineering Camp

This paper describes the outreach activities that have been effective in educating students about the area of advanced materials as an engineering career, and discusses the impact that our University’s Engineers Starters Program has on motivating underrepresented minority students to consider the engineering educational and career paths. The overall goal of the program is to generate or sustain adolescents’ interest in engineering and technology and to enhance selfconfidence and motivation toward education. The portion of the program developed by the Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures (CAMSS) is shaped by a philosophical approach that emphasizes the direct benefit of learning by active methods and by game-play. A classroom voting system, “Qwizdom” software was utilized which enabled the collection of realtime data from students. While reviewing the day’s activities, the facilitators could immediately assess student comprehension and generate excitement about the material in a game setting. In addition, answers were viewed by gender and by the number of times the students had attended this summer program. Modules were chosen from the Materials World Modules (MWM), an NSF-funded inquiry-based science and technology educational program based at Northwestern University. The modules utilized during the summer 2007 program were the Sports Materials Module and the Ceramics Module. In the Sports Materials Module, students explore the materials design and function of a wide variety of balls used in athletics, as well as test and analyze their interactions with many surfaces they come in contact during play. In the Ceramic Module, students study the science of compacting ultra small ceramic particles. The pre and post survey data will be also discussed.