2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Students' practical exposure to real-world situations in the context of sanitary topics is often constrained. Visiting relevant projects is logistically challenging due to project scale, location, or underground/above-ground nature. Generative Artificial intelligence (AI) applications can be supporting tool to contextualize issues for students. Generative AI has been developing over the course of these last decades, but in the past few years has taken more importance in higher education, specifically in engineering majors such as Civil Engineering. The purpose of this study is to explore how generative AI can be used to support critical thinking development in water resources and sanitary students. For this, students were assigned to introduce the prompt of a video into a generative AI app and to ask the app to summarize the main points. The activity consisted in an interaction with the app through questions and answers in fostering critical thinking abilities. The types of questions asked were guided by the professor in order for students to arrive to a third level of critical thinking. After the activity, students were given a survey about their perception of the activity. Data analysis consisted in content analysis regarding student responses, and content analysis of the student interaction with the app to measure how deep in critical thinking students arrived. The sample size consisted in 30 senior students and 25 junior students of Civil Engineering students from the XXXXXXXXXXXXXX from the water resources and sanitary courses. We discuss the possible factors driving these outcomes and explore the avenues academia could take to incorporate the results. Implications for research and practice are provided.