Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Civil engineering education commonly has classroom instructional strategies that include synchronous engagements between the instructor and the learner, but seldom has synchronous experiences between the learner and real-time external phenomena.As a consequence, student learning has historical sensibilities that may inhibit formulating opinions and conclusions from live events.This paper explores a natural disaster as a real-time course inquiry and its semester long immersion into the structures classroom at a private liberal arts university.A qualitative research design was deployed with a teacher's story and participant observation study to document forty-four third-year architecture students studying an unfolding disaster event.The disaster was the 2010 Haiti earthquake.The findings indicate that students envision earthquake events as either a structural phenomenon with cultural implications or a cultural phenomenon with structural implications.The lessons learned from implementing a real-time disaster inquiry in the classroom are provided.
Source: ASEE Midwest Section Conference
Author: Keith E. Hedges
Language: English
Subfield: Architecture
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4407678335