Student-Centered Learning Environment for Disaster-Mitigating Engineering Design and Deployment in Developing Regions

A comprehensive student-centered learning environment was created in a funded course sequence on disaster-mitigating design and practice at the Catholic University of America. This paper details educational issues related to accreditation outcomes, accommodation of instructional methods to different learning styles, and educational objectives based on Bloom's taxonomy. The focus of this educational effort was on exploring solutions for mitigating earthquake damage in developing regions, which suffer disproportionally high casualties. Undergraduate students were in charge from planning to implementation, including a critiqued literature review on socio-cultural environments and traditional technologies, evaluating low-cost damping systems in laboratory testing, preparing architectural designs per functional needs of its host community, performing structural calculations per the International Building Code, and coordinating its implementation. Faculty organized site visits and guest lectures and served as facilitators who contributed sessions on seismology, creativity, and entrepreneurship. Collaborating with local Engineers Without Borders chapters enabled two successful trips to a village of approximately 3,200 inhabitants located in rural El Salvador. The team assessed site conditions and built a new health clinic of reinforced masonry with concrete beams on rubber pad foundation dampers. The local community participated in planning and volunteered significant labor to "make the project their own." Recommendations are presented on implementing learning experiences that groom globally aware and socially engaged young engineers.