Articles

Education Update - June

Civil Engineering Club at Woodrow Wilson High School (2013-2014)
 
After leading one of the few Civil Engineering Club pilot programs for ASCE National in early 2013, the ASCE Dallas Branch has continued to expand and build excitement around the club at Woodrow Wilson High School during the 2013-2014 academic school year.  The goal of this club is to get high school students interested and hooked on civil engineering. Over the course of the semester, professionals from all branches of civil engineering gave presentations and led group activities. WWHS was a natural fit in that they actually have an “Engineering Academy” sponsored by Project Lead the Way where students can take classes in either civil or aerospace engineering.  The Engineering Academy allows students to take focused engineering classes through all 4 years of high school. 

At the end of the 2013-2014 school year, WWHS received their certification from Project Lead the Way, making it the first school in the Dallas Independent School District to do so.  We are told that the presence of the CE Club, along with all the guest professional speakers, were major factors in WWHS earning this certification.

Mr. Brandon Carver, the Director of the Academy of Engineering and the civil engineering class teacher, decided to move the club meetings from an after school event to an actual class period.  This meant that the guest speakers were acting as a “substitute teacher” for the day while presenting on a specific branch of civil engineering and leading a class activity.  Below are some of the highlights of each presenter and activity:

Civil Engineering Students from UT-Arlington

ASCE Student Chapter leaders and members of the steel bridge team talked to WWHS students about getting into college, engineering classes, and the challenges in finding jobs after graduation.  Last year’s UTA steel bridge was also brought out and set up on the front lawn for all the students to look at.  Students were also invited to attend the Texas-Mexico Section Meeting and Steel Bridge Competition at UT-Arlington in January.

Architects from Corgan Associates

Janah St. Luce and Keith Cummins from Corgan explained the building process from an architect’s perspective, and how a building gets carried from concept to fully operational for the building owner.  Janah and Keith also showed off some of the Revit modeling they get to do every day, something that the WWHS students are starting to learn about in class.  A field trip was also planned later in the school year where students had the opportunity to tour the Corgan office in downtown Dallas and see building design in progress.  Students were shown the architects’ work spaces as well as the state-of-the-art Corgan Media Lab.  Pictures from the field trip can be found here.
 

Water Resources Engineer from Kimley-Horn & Associates

Ashlyn Kelbly from KHA shared her knowledge of water distribution systems and the design of both new pipelines and rehabilitation options such as cure in place piping (CIPP).  Students were taught the basics of the Bernoulli equation and how this is utilized in the design of water pipelines.  Ashlyn then challenged the students to put this knowledge to use by designing a water distribution system out of different sized straws, plastic tubing, and connectors to fill two separate tanks at different elevations and locations at the same rate from a single water source.
 
Water Resources Engineers from Lockwood, Andrews, & Newnam

Whitney Brewer and Paul Banschbach from LAN touched on another aspect of water resources engineering in the form of wastewater and stormwater management.  This presentation was focused more on practical design as students learned more about the benefits and disadvantages to both trenched and trench-less pipe rehabilitation.  Picture and videos from actual jobs that Whitney and Paul had actually been out on were shown to the students and the club meeting concluded with a trivia game among class teams.

Construction Administration and Engineering with L.A. Fuess Partners

The ASCE Dallas sponsor for the CE Club and LAFP structural engineer, Jonathan Brower, had the opportunity to showcase the construction side of being a consulting engineer.  WWHS students were asked to consider how an engineer must communicate all their ideas, calculations, and design to a contractor who is not present during design and not close by in some cases while the building is under construction.  Students were then asked to play both the designer and contractor role in a Lego construction activity.  Each team of students was given a series of pictures at different angles of a Lego building.  Each team had to then produce a series of drawings that could be passed on to another team that had all the Lego pieces and served as the “contractor”.  Any questions that the contractor had for the design team could not be asked orally, but rather had to be written down and addressed on paper in a very similar fashion to an official request for information (RFI).  Students struggled at first with the most efficient way to communicate their building design to the contractor team given the time restraints of the class period.  However, eventually a process was developed and an appreciation for the complexity of construction was established. 
 

Structural Engineers from L.A. Fuess Partners

James Kleineck, Phillip Pesek, and Steven Blair from LAFP split their presentation on structural engineering over two separate club meetings.  The first club meeting focused around defining what exactly a structural engineer does, from designing bridges and buildings to roller coasters and infrastructure like the Hoover Dam.  James went into especially great detail on how he uses the engineering process on a daily basis to analyze loads and materials to design structural elements.  Phil then showed the students deflection and moment equations for a simply supported beam with a point load in the middle.  Students were then asked to consider how the beam properties and geometry affected the strength and stiffness of the beam span.  At the next club meeting, teams of students were given pieces of foam core board and hot glue guns to make the most “efficient” beam possible.  The team that built the beam with the largest load-to-beam-weight ratio was deemed the winner.  Testing was done by hanging a bucket at the beam mid-span and incrementally filling the bucket with sandbags.  A video from the “Build-A-Beam” activity can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsrNYTvrQdQ. 
    
   
Field Trip at Terracon Office and Materials Lab

Bachan Sinha and Bill Douglas from Terracon were kind enough to host about 20 students in the Engineering Academy at WWHS at the office and materials lab.  Students were given a brief presentation on geotechnical engineering and were then taken over to the materials testing lab.  Here the students learned about all the various types of material testing that is done by geotechnical engineering on every construction project.  They even got the chance to watch the always exciting concrete cylinder axial compression test.  More pictures from the field trip can be found here.

  
 
Environmental & Transportation Engineers from Halff Associates

Pamela Valera, Phillip Knowles, and Hugo Calderon from Halff Associates gave a presentation on transportation and environmental engineering.  Phillip and Hugo detailed some of Halff’s history and explained how transportation projects can create significant environmental impacts.  Pamela then touched on one of those impacts: storm water run-off and treatment.  She also talked about how water and waste water treatment plants function.  This was especially helpful for the high school students since they had just gone on a field trip to see a treatment plant in south Dallas two weeks earlier.  Students were also shown how a small example of environmental engineering can be seen every day in their house in a water filter pitcher.

 
  
Surveying with the Texas Society of Professional Surveyors

Gary Williams and Patrick Baldasaro from TSPS were kind enough to bring a total station and rod out to the Woodrow Wilson High School football field to show the students what surveyors are really doing when we see them standing out there on the side of the road with their giant tripod.  A couple of students were tasked with the ever-important job of setting up and leveling the total station and the tripod.  Students then established a baseline point with Patrick and Gary’s help and then began to map out dierent points around the school.  Students were particularly impressed with the level of precision of the total stations.  More pictures can be found here.

   
      
    
Student Survey
At the end of the school year the students were asked to fill out a survey about their experience in the Civil Engineering Club.  Below are some of the responses we received:
After a year of club meetings, do you still want to study civil engineering?
“Yes, because meeting actual civil engineers gave me a good idea about what it is to be an engineer.”

“Yes, because it would be nice to say I was a part of a very important building design in the future.”

“Yes, because I can be creative with my designs and make up new designs that no one else has created.”

“Yes, because we did a lot of fun projects.”

What was your favorite part about the civil engineering activities that you participated in during the club meetings?
“We got to work as an engineering team, and it prepared us for future engineering projects where you work as a team on every project.”

“I like working with my teammates on hands-on activities that were fun and challenging.”

“I liked that we had the opportunity to be creative.”

“I liked being able to design and build with my friends.”

Favorite Student Activity: Structural – Build-A-Beam

 
Overall Club Rating:
8.6/10 
Thank you to all the organizations and individuals that helped build this club up and make it a huge success!

If you are interested in helping out during the 2014-2015 school year please contact the ASCE Dallas Education Chair, Jonathan Brower
[email protected] 
214-593-1139 (office)