This paper briefly reviews the author's experiences over the past four decades in transforming the Engineering Design Graphics (EDG) curriculum. During this time, the field has seen a remarkable evolution from manual drafting to 3-D computer modeling with its many applications to engineering design and analysis. The paper will further discuss the…

Engineering design is known as an answer to an ill-defined problem. As any answer to an ill-defined problem, it can never be completely right or absolutely wrong. The methods that universities use to teach engineering design, as a consequence of this, suffer from the same fate. However, the accumulated experience with the "chalk and…

At its core, science is about making sense of the world around us. Therefore, science education should engage students in that sense-making process. Helping students make sense of disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts by engaging in scientific practices is the key innovation of the "Next Generation Science Standards"…

Modeling is one of the scientific practices featured in the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") (Achieve Inc. 2013). This practice is central to the work of science because modeling activities can prompt new questions for investigation, which, in turn, can lead to evidence and information that can be incorporated into…

Information graphics, or "infographics," are widely used to convey complex science and its importance to society. To be educated consumers and citizens, students need to understand and be critical of information presented in graphical form. Researchers, accordingly, have called for fostering the "representational competence" of…

Teaching "Engineering Graphics" to freshman engineering students poses challenges to instructors as well as to students. While the instructors are confronted with a lack of material / text book that covers the broad scope of the subject matter, the students struggle to correlate newly developed skills to real-world engineering design problems…

Of the eight practices of science identified in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012), helping students develop and use models has been identified by many as an anchor (Schwarz and Passmore 2012; Windschitl 2012). In instruction, disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and scientific practices can be meaningfully…

Many educators believe that solid modeling software has made teaching two- and three-dimensional visualization skills obsolete. They claim that the visual tools built into the solid modeling software serve as a replacement for the CAD operator's personal visualization skills. They also claim that because solid modeling software can produce…

It has been suggested there is a knowledge base that surrounds the use of 3D modeling within the engineering design process and correspondingly within engineering design graphics education. While solid modeling receives a great deal of attention and discussion relative to curriculum efforts, and rightly so, surface modeling is an equally viable 3D…

Business professors in the twenty-first century have been engaging in another form of problem-based pedagogy to unite business school and business practice. This teaching methodology, called "active learning," has become the new case method in college courses. Like the case-based approach, active learning bridges the gap between theory and…

Engineering design graphics education has come a long way in the past two decades. The emergence of solid geometric modeling technology has become the focal point for the graphical development of engineering design ideas. The main attraction of this 3-D modeling approach is the downstream application of the data base to analysis and…

Graphical plans for construction of machinery and architecture have evolved over the last 6,000 years beginning from hieroglyphics to drawings on printable media, from the "Golden Age" of engineering graphics to the innovation of computer graphics and prototyping. The evolution of engineering design graphics as a profession has also evolved. Years…

Describes a project that is a part of an "Architects in Schools" program in England in which students were challenged to redesign a small structure on the school grounds. Discusses the student tasks involved, including the development of scale models, and the evaluation of the design. (TW)

Describes a popular seventh-grade mathematics project that involves house plans. Students choose house plans from books, transfer the plan to grid paper, and stake out the floor plan on a vacant area of the neighborhood. Project includes designing dream homes, researching jobs to afford their homes, and discussion of real-life concerns. (PVD)

The Technology Edu-Camp described in this report was held in July of 1988 at Arkansas State Technical Institute. Purposes were: to provide vocational instructors an opportunity to expand their knowledge and understanding of the needs of technical occupations; to upgrade their technical skills; and to develop lesson materials for courses in…