2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

“I want to safely drink 1-cup of water before the end of the semester” was the main objective given to students who were told to build a semi-functional drinking water treatment plant. The remaining goals of this project-based learning style were up to students to develop the 3D printable drinking water treatment plant and the accompanying lesson plans. This relatively simple project idea was the throughline for my entry-level Environmental Engineering course taught to students at a small private liberal arts college. As the only engineering course offered at our private liberal arts college, my mission was to connect engineering themes and concepts to students who originally had little interest in the topic.
STEAM education is often de-emphasized at smaller private liberal arts colleges where students are used to engaging in social justice work, community education and advocacy, as well as artistic expression. Students often enroll in these college programs explicitly to deemphasize difficult math and engineering skill sets in favor of humanities and arts courses. To better engage with the students at a small private liberal arts college, I proposed students design a small-scale, 3D printable drinking water treatment facility and develop lessons plans for future educators. This project-based learning style helped students engage with the difficult math subjects and the open-access educational aspect promoted a sense of purpose in otherwise rote work. By making “develop open-source materials and accompanying lesson plans” a central mission of our project, students were able to engage with passion knowing their work had significance for other educators. This project was not just a small one-off assignment, but the start a larger community engagement activity and could be continually used as demonstrations outside classroom settings.
While this course serves as more of a general engineering course at our institution, the emphasis on environmental engineering offered a more focused approach to an array of topics. Furthermore, this course is the only strict engineering course at our institution but is now serving as a gateway for students to take similar engineering courses at nearby partnered institutions. While there are some topics which were de-emphasized to create space for such a large project-based learning environment, ultimately students showed an increased interest and more confidence with practical math, engineering, and science communication skills by the end of the course.