Cultural and Academic Learning Through Project Based Initiatives

Engineers Without Borders (EWB) provides students a unique outlet to experience academia through a whole new lens, one that sheds light on global issues and the opportunity to effect the lives of others.Rowan University's EWB project, involving clean water distribution in Senegal, is one such project that has exposed our young intellect to a breadth of different learning, one that cannot be taught in the classroom setting.Traveling to Africa in March 2007 provided us with an anthropological experience in which the team was exposed to a different culture with a different set of social and cultural necessities, in addition to the fundamental needs of life.This experience brought to light the true need for potable water accessibility abroad, while at the same time proved to be influential in molding a new outlook on the participants' lives.In addition to intrapersonal growth and revival, the project provided an experience in enhanced scholastic learning through research, experimentation and professional engineering coordination.This experience has added a greater depth to the typical undergraduate experience, tying the importance of civil engineering practices to the global community.The purposes of this paper are to:(1) Describe the project with respect to service learning and its implications to engineering education (2) Describe how EWB chapter members experienced anthropological and cultural lessons through the initial service learning trip and post-assessment coordination (3) Describe the University level of learning related to the project through research, experimentation and professional coordination