2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The burgeoning use of technology and sensing within civil and environmental engineering (CEE) applications has created a need for future engineers to gain skills and understanding in the effective use of sensing and interpretation of massive amounts of data to understand and improve infrastructure. In response to these changes, our faculty have been defining learning outcomes necessary to prepare our students to be successful engineers in this new era in CEE engineering practice. The faculty have added two laboratory courses focused on sensing and additional computation and data science courses focused specifically on CEE applications. We have also incorporated sensing into projects in our project-course sequence and have developed and continue to adapt a threading document that maps how our students gain the desired knowledge and skills through our curriculum.

Through vertically-scaffolded, sequential courses, our institution aims to produce graduates who can effectively design sensing systems for different applications and environments, interpret large quantities of data, and use that data to control infrastructure systems and enhance management strategies. Over the course of two years, the courses are structured sequentially so that students gain greater autonomy over testbed selection and sensor choice as they gain skills and knowledge. These skills are first activated in the sophomore-design course where students are guided through the design and testing of an Arduino-based sensing system. After the initial exposure, sophomores develop an understanding of the physical principles of sensors, analyze sensor data, construct their own sensors, and develop code to control a small-scale infrastructure sensing system in a hands-on laboratory environment. In their junior-level project course, students design, construct, and implement a sensing system to collect data that is interpreted to aid in infrastructure decision-making. In their final sensing laboratory course, field-based CEE problems are posed that require students to choose and deploy appropriate off-the-shelf sensing hardware to collect data that is used for analysis of the problem.

Our sensing thread and courses are still in development and will continue to evolve as we better understand how students best learn these skills. This case study presents our current sensing thread learning objectives, describes how we are teaching sensing through hands-on activities, and shares observations of the effectiveness of our efforts, challenges we are encountering, and guidance for integrating sensing into civil and environmental engineering curricula and courses.