An innovative environmental design module

A major objective of the Junior Engineering Clinic at Rowan University is to introduce students to open-ended design projects. All engineering students from the four engineering disciplines namely Civil, Chemical, Electrical and Mechanical share a common engineering clinic class. This class is a major hallmark of the Rowan engineering program for all engineering students throughout their eight semesters of study. The purpose of the clinic classes is to provide engineering students with a hands-on, multidisciplinary experience throughout their college education. The junior and senior clinics emphasize multidisciplinary design on projects of progressive complexity. This paper focuses on three environmental engineering design projects that were sponsored by local wastewater treatment plants and the National Science Foundation. Multidisciplinary student teams conducted a thorough literature search, developed models or design experiments related to their projects. This type of innovative approach for allowing students to become involved in realistic open-ended design problems is beneficial for enhancing their problem solving skills and encourages them to pursue graduate studies.