Work-In-Progress: Integration of Inclusivity Activity in Civil Engineering Materials Course

The objective of the paper is to present a work-in-progress effort in integrating an inclusivity component in a civil engineering materials course. Civil Engineering Materials is a required junior level 2- credit course with a lab on aggregates, cement, cement concrete and asphalt, and hot mix asphalt. There were 72 students in the class with 24 groups of three members each. In fall 2017, the instructor introduced an activity in half of the number of groups compared the testing standard of construction materials between two states within the US and the other half compared the testing standards between a state in the US and a different country. The objective of this activity was to expose half of the cohort of students to practices in different countries and evaluate the impact of exposing this activity on the social attitudes. The course has a two 75-minute lecture slot, and one 150 min slot for laboratory. The instructor was supported by four lab assistants. However, the students meet for the laboratory only four to five times a semester. The students were required to do the following as part of this activity: 1) Submit a one-page summary about the comparison between states within US or between US and other country within the first four weeks of classes; 2) Meet with each lab assistant to discuss the progress four weeks after the topic was approved; 3) Give a final presentation for 20 minutes, including 5 minute during the last week of class during the lab period. All the lab assistants viewed all the presentations and graded based on Oral Communication, Visual Communication, Professionalism, Technical Content, and overall organization.