An Information Resource Web Page For A Freshman Problem Based Learning Engineering Course

An information resource web-page has been constructed to support an experimental freshman engineering course at the USAF Academy (USAFA) . The intent of the course is to use Problem Based Learning (PBL) 3 to begin developing problem solving skills while concurrently introducing engineering fundamentals to cadets. The course does not have a textbook or a syllabus. Instead, the cadets are given learning objectives, a tasking (to develop a plan for a manned research mission to Mars) , and access to an information resource containing data and references on engineering, Mars, and problem solving skills and tools. A series of mini-workshops and the information resource are used to initiate the problem solving skills-development. Initially, the information resource was a collection of computer folders. Before long, however, the accumulation of information in the folders made them hard to use, and during computer downtimes, they were inaccessible.