COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

A special edition of PERSPECTIVE

ANNUAL REPORT for alumni and friends of the
UW-Madison College of Engineering
2011
SPRING 2011

Opportunities
in engineering
Advancing our workforce
and our economy

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Showing
middle school
students the
societal side
of engineering
By
Sandra Knisely
W
hen Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Amy
Wendt (right) was in ninth grade, her teacher asked
the class if anyone liked math. Sitting in the front row,
Wendt eagerly put up her hand. Then she realized she was the only one.
Now, Wendt is helping math and science teachers ask their students
a different question to get them thinking about careers in engineering:
Would you like to help society?
Led by Wendt, a UW-Madison team is working closely with teachers,
counselors and administrators at six Wisconsin middle schools to
develop a new kind of engineering outreach program.
Along with Wendt, the UW-Madison team consists of Philip Dunham
Reed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Susan
Hagness (left) and College of Engineering Associate Dean of Academic
Affairs Steven Cramer, along with School of Education Professor L. Allen
Phelps and Assistant Professor Kimberly Howard. Several graduate
students are involved, including Lauren Aneskavich, Kevin Cheng and
Tam Mayeshiba from the College of Engineering and Jacob Diestelmann,
Stephen Gresham and Tsu-Lun Huang from the School of Education.
Edgewood College Professor Amy Schiebel also contributes.
The current list of schools the team will work with includes Lodi Area
Middle School, Madison Middle School and Kaleidoscope Academy/
Roosevelt Middle School in Appleton, Mitchell Middle School and
Starbuck Middle School in Racine, and Westfield Area Middle School. The
schools represent a mix of urban and rural schools from different areas of
the state close enough for the UW-Madison researchers to visit regularly.
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David Nevala
This project exemplifies the Wisconsin Idea, Cramer says. It is our
hope these students will see engineering in a whole new light.
Engineering grand challenges
The National Academy of Engineering has laid out a set of major
societal issues that will require innovative engineering solutions in the
21st century. The challenges are broad-sweeping and include energy,
healthcare and urban infrastructure, among several others.
The Grand Challenges for Engineering initiative first came to
UW-Madison in the form of an introductory engineering course
spearheaded by Hagness and introduced in 2008. The course, which is
now open to students across the UW-Madison campus, is based on a
set of modules that asks students to investigate the various political,
environmental, ethical and legal constraints behind technical solutions.
The middle school program is an extension of the philosophy behind
that course, which targets first-year college students because studies
indicate early exposure to the societal impact of engineering helps
retain students in the field.
With the new program, UW-Madison engineers are reaching out
even earlier in the education pipeline. Middle school is the time when
students start having to make choices about what courses theyll take
in high school, Wendt says. This gives us the opportunity to expose
them to the humanitarian applications of engineering before theyve
ruled out engineering without really knowing what it is.
 There are additional social issues in middle school that make it an
ideal time for outreach. Middle school is a very impressionable time
for students, Hagness says. Its the first time in a students academic
career when peer influences really start to affect choices.
Those influences can spread misconceptions about engineers, such
as the stereotype that a student has to be a math whiz or will spend
their career in a cubicle building gadgets.
The UW-Madison researchers will emphasize instead that engineering
can be a powerful gateway to helping society. At a basic level, I hope to
just influence the awareness and attitude of students that some things
arent just a social issue or technical issue but are a mix of factors,
Wendt says.
Everybodys doing it
The program will include four classroom modules, each of which will
provide up to three weeks of flexible instructional content that science
and math teachers can draw from and fit into their lesson plans.
The UW-Madison program is different from other outreach programs
because it incorporates the modules directly into regular math and
science courses instead of establishing elective courses or extracurricular
activities. Every student at the participating schools will be exposed to
engineering, rather than only those who self-select to join voluntary
outreach programs.
Doing this in core classes means everybodys doing it, and if its a
positive experience for everybody, then a student whos kind of excited
about it wont feel as much of an oddball, Wendt says.
The program has received a three-year grant of nearly $1 million
from the National Science Foundation, as well as additional support
from the Plexus Foundation, Young Scientists of America and the Carl
Marschke family. The funds cover module materials, questionnaires
to examine students impressions before and after each module, a
summer workshop for teachers at UW-Madison and travel costs to allow
teachers and researchers to frequently meet
over the next two years.
During the 2012-2013 school year, the team will introduce two more
modules that will address clean water and biomedical challenges.
Each module will include classroom activities ranging from pencil
and paper assignments to design and testing projects to watching
videos about UW-Madison alumni working in the field.
One of our goals is to have a curriculum that goes beyond the
scientific method, where you form a hypothesis and test it, Wendt
says. Well look more at how to achieve an engineering goal when
you have constraints, so students can get a flavor of the engineering
design process.
Eager for some company
While the program aims to reach out to a broad range of students,
inspiring female and underrepresented minority students is a particular
goal for Wendt and Hagness.
Wendt says there were few women in many science-related careers
when she became an engineer. Yet as the decades went by and other
fields, such as medicine and the life sciences, saw substantial growth
in terms of female practitioners, the number of women in engineering
remained stalled. Women on average make up 18 to 20 percent of the
engineering undergraduate student population at UW-Madison.
Im eager to have more company, Wendt says. It seems like a
shame to me that girls are missing out on some really exciting
opportunities just because they arent aware those opportunities
exist at the time they start to think about careers.
Though they know not every student, female or male, will go into
engineering after participating in the UW-Madison program, Wendt
and Hagness say overall its a great opportunity to raise the profile of
the profession.
We can inform the students, who will become the general public,
and give them a better appreciation for engineering, Hagness says.

Renee Meiller
Two of the modules will be introduced in The UW-Madison researchers hosted a weeklong workshop
the partner schools during the 2011-2012 in summer 2011 for middle school teachers in the program.
school year and will present particular
themes as multidisciplinary problems. In
the solar energy module, for example,
students will look at solar cookers, solar
water heaters and photovoltaic lights.
The restoring infrastructure module will
go well beyond building toothpick bridges.
Students will learn about the broad
challenges involved in restoring bridges
across the country, including materials
science questions and how electrical
sensors can monitor bridges. Students also
will learn how engineers retrofit buildings
and structures to mitigate damage from
earthquakes and hurricanes.

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