STUDENT EMERSION IN ENGINEERING AND GEOSCIENCES RESEARCH: ONE-WAY OF STRENGTHENING THE DISCIPLINES

As studies show, the population of the science and engineering (S&E) community is aging, it is becoming important to get the young S&E students ‘hooked’ early in research. We can achieve this by building research projects into some upper level courses in addition to independent studies or research. Since there are environmental problems and issues that need to be addressed, involving undergraduates early becomes necessary, as they will continue with research that will help address environmental problems/issues. Several courses where research has been integrated as part of the requirement include, but are not limited to these: engineering geology, water resources management, environmental engineering, environmental geology, and hydrogeology. In many of these courses, the research component may account for 30 to 60% of the course grade. Large projects are broken into bite size for students to complete within a semester. Other students have either extended the research project or gone to graduate school to conduct similar research projects. Several research projects from some of these courses have resulted in regional, national and international presentations and publications. The vast majority of the more than 50 students that participated in the research projects found the experience pleasant. Selected students research projects will be presented.