Inspired by a visit to the Science History Institute in Philadelphia during the Enhancing Inclusive Teaching (EIT) workshop, I designed this assignment to get students thinking about engineering from a new perspective. How would you display key facts, artifacts, and contributors to engineering in a format for the public? What text, format, and graphics would draw museum goers to your exhibit? The creative aspect of this assignment engages students' curiosity, and their work on generating technical, yet appropriate content for their exhibits promotes value creation. Additionally, students can use the creative aspects of the project to draw connections across course content, particularly the technical aspects of geotechnical engineering and prior course content in writing and design from their required first-year courses (e.g., Writing Seminar, Foundations of Design 1 & 2). 

I implemented this assignment in my junior-level required CEE course Geotechnical Engineering (CE 3311, fall semester 2023). The course is part of our core curriculum, is for three credit-hours, and meets three days a week. The class covers traditional soil mechanics and soil labs, and is a prerequisite for our Design of Foundations course (retaining walls, deep foundations, etc.). The topic list for the exhibits includes any of the labs done in class (e.g., proctor test, liquid limit), and the use/management, soil compaction, and pollution at landfills, sports fields, or graveyards (which I cover during the compaction section of class). Students can also suggest a topic of their choosing for individual approval. Students must demonstrate how their exhibit relates to core civil/environmental topics, which further builds connections. This fall (2024), I will be repeating the activity, with new-and-improved content, more content scaffolding, and pre- and post- activity surveys. 

In this free-form assignment, students virtually and/or physically develop a museum exhibit on a topic of their choice (from a set of options based on class content, or self-suggested topic). The required content for the exhibit includes: title, summary blurb, artifacts/figures, facts, and any notable contributors to the field. Students must also create a pamphlet/brochure, which ties back directly to their first-year course at ONU where students create pamphlets (and videos) about their prototype (see this card). In that course, value creation is explicitly covered, with the pamphlets and videos being deliverables of the value creation course content. A separate bibliography is also required of students to ensure thoughtful and good use of resources. Students have access to resources from the Smithsonian on exhibit development. Additional resources are provided in the assignment guide (see folder), and as links in instructor tips for this card. Students are also provided with the ONU Design Handbook (co-authored by me, and available as a KEEN card), with reminders on finding and selecting appropriate scholarly resources, and how to generate ideas. 

The museum exhibit is assigned as a course project in roughly week eight of the semester. The showcase is planned for roughly week twelve of the semester. In preparation for the showcase, students are given at least two in-class workdays, including a low-stakes peer-review day to solicit feedback on their ideas and materials. For more on peer-to-peer feedback, particularly in written format, see this card. 

After the first round of this activity, I am delighted with the results and look forward to further developing the museum exbibit assignment. For the live showcase, I solicited judges from across campus (all departments, including reps from across engineering, biology, religion, communications, creative writing, the library, and even the Chaplain) so that the museum exhibits could be judged on science communication to a broad audience. Students were present for the showcase event judging, and talked with three different judges during the showcase. Overall, faculty and upper-class student judges enjoyed the event, and provided feedback for future iterations. 

To read about the museum showcase, see this article from ONU News, which was then picked up by School Finder. 

Check out this card by Erin Jablonski for some similar ideas on dissemination of information.

The weakest aspect of my trial run was the rubric I used for judging and assessment. I am actively working on researching and creating a new rubric, so check back for the updated rubric later this fall semester.