Workforce Development Through Experiential Learning and Collaboration between Industry, Government, and Universities to Solve Environmental Challenges

The WERC Environmental Design Contest empowers engineering students with needed workforce skills as they participate in experiential learning that includes innovative design work, presentations, and bench-scale demonstrations of working prototypes.Collaboration with industry and government partners gives students the opportunity to solve real-world environmental challenges, be mentored by engineering professionals, and have the potential to see their designs further developed and implemented by the contest sponsors.Data collected at the design contest indicates that students improved in seven workforcedevelopment competencies, suggesting that students who participate in long-term, hands-on globally responsible projects develop valuable technical and professional skills that prepare them for a dynamic workforce.Of particular note is the high percentage of participation by females and firstgeneration college students in the design contest, indicating that design contests can serve to increase confidence and more fully develop the needed technical and professional skill sets for these underrepresented groups.Although experiential learning has historically been reserved for the senior year and more recently incorporated into many Freshman curricula, data from the WERC Environmental Design Contest indicate the value of filling the gap between the Freshman and Senior years with an engineering design contest as an out-of-class instructional vehicle.