Innovative Learning
Janel Shoun |
From dune buggies to milk shakes:
Innovative, hands-on learning gets students out of the classrooms
Featured Course
Engineering zooms into the Baja SAE national race
In June, the Baja SAE engineering team made its best showing in the four years since it was established when its off-road vehicle came in 12th place overall in the 2010 Baja SAE Rochester off-road racing competition in New York, placing better or comparably with long-standing and respected engineering programs across the nation.
Each year Lipscomb’s Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering recruits students to compete in the Society of Automotive Engineers’ (SAE) Baja East Competition, a project that puts classroom training into action by challenging students to design, build and test the performance of a real vehicle in a competitive environment. SAE collegiate design competitions draw more than 4,500 students from 500 universities from six different continents.
In the Rochester race, 70 teams competed, and Lipscomb’s car finished:
- Second place in water maneuverability,
- Seventh place in acceleration,
- 11th place in land maneuverability,
- 13th place in the endurance race, completing 26 laps in four hours,
- 16th place in the cost report category,
- 20th place in suspension and traction, and
- 28th place on the hill climb.
Lipscomb placed ahead of far more established programs such as the University of Illinois, Michigan Tech, Tennessee Tech, the University of Alabama and Syracuse.
“Our students have now demonstrated that Lipscomb is in the same league or ahead of, in this competition, a host of other top-notch engineering schools,” said Fred Gilliam, dean of the College of Engineering.
“Throughout this past weekend (June 12-13), this team of engineering students represented our university in a very positive way and raised the profile of Lipscomb University on the national stage,” Gilliam said. “Lipscomb can be very proud of their impressive achievement, and can also be proud of their character, conduct, automotive design expertise, teamwork, and competitiveness.”
Team members who went to Rochester are Kyle Collins, David Gilbert, Summer Cassilly, Casey Burkhart, Derek Burkhart and Michael Meador. Other team members include Mark McMahan, Luke Burris and Josh Baker.
Earlier in 2010 at the Clemson University competition, Lipscomb’s vehicle also fared well for a young program, placing 22nd in maneuverability and 24th in the cost of the vehicle. The field of 100 cars included entries from Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
Other innovative courses in 2009-10:
| Desert Learning Community The Power of Science LJS: The Life of an Immigrant |
Engineering: Trebuchet Competition SEE Math Workshop Finance: TVA Challenge |
Desert learning community blends arts and science
Five professors from the English, art and biology departments collaborated this year to create a Maymester desert learning community: An ecology travel course emphasizing the interaction between science and the arts.
Students traveled to the Guadalupe Mountains and Big Bend National Park for 10 days to carry out scientific observations and field work in the desert. They did daily journaling, read various works of nature literature and created art and drawings of what they saw. It was all part of the overall goal to see how the arts and sciences actually enhance one another, rather than being completely separate.
Students traveled to the Guadalupe Mountains and Big Bend National Park for 10 days to carry out scientific observations and field work in the desert. They did daily journaling, read various works of nature literature and created art and drawings of what they saw. It was all part of the overall goal to see how the arts and sciences actually enhance one another, rather than being completely separate.
“We want them to learn that all these barriers between academic disciplines man-made,” said Gallaher. “If you look back historically at how knowledge was acquired, there were no barriers between artwork and science. Look at John Muir. If we have an understanding of art it helps us understand science better and understanding science helps understand literature better.”
The participants camped in tents, spent a few nights within yards of the Rio Grande, visited the Donald Judd Foundation (a museum of the minimalist artist’s works) in Marfa, Texas, and spent an evening with Texas artist and author Acree Carlisle, who told them stories of the Comanche wars as the sun was setting. More…
Photos by Jackson Hearn
The interdisciplinary two-course sequence, The Power of Science, uses civic engagement, team-teaching and attention-grabbing topics such as global warming, H1N1, pollution and food safety to teach elementary and middle school education majors a variety of applicable science concepts from biology, chemistry, physics and nutrition. The course, endorsed by grants from the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement (NCSCE), has been held up to Tennessee’s Congressional leaders as an excellent example of how civic engagement and an interdisciplinary approach can be used to enhance science education.
The class learned about physics concepts such as density and volume and used mathematics, qualitative and quantitative data to document the physical properties of a milk shake at Elliston Street Soda Shop. The freshman course was team-taught by nutrition chair Autumn Marshall and physics chair Alan Bradshaw.
A Day in the Life of an Immigrant
Students in the Society & the Law course, offered through the Institute for Law, Justice & Society, were exposed to the challenges of being an immigrant or refugee in the Nashville community. During a recent class session, students were each given a five dollar bill and taken to a refugee center for a presentation. A member of the center's leadership team shared specific challenges immigrants face, including language, employment and financial barriers. The students then took public transportation to a world market where they bought products they had never seen before in their local grocery store. The class concluded with students tasting each others' products and openly discussing the challenges they faced as an "immigrant" in a part of Nashville they had never experienced.
Storming the Castle
Mechanical and civil engineering sophomores in the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering take part in the annual Trebuchet Competition. In the spring of their sophomore year, students are enrolled in Dynamics, which studies the mechanics of motion, and Strength of Materials, which studies how to design structures to carry a prescribed load. The students are given the task of designing a trebuchet from a fixed list of materials. They are given two weeks to design their trebuchet and eight hours on a Saturday to build.
They then have three chances to hit a simulated “Castle Lipscomb” (actually a high target with the photos of their “favorite” professors ). Afterward they are required to write a design report and give a presentation on the design and performance of their trebuchet. This project teaches the students many aspects of engineering including teamwork, designing with constraints and the relationship between theoretical analyses and experimental testing.
SEE-Math Workshop
The State of Tennessee invested almost $1 million in Math and Science Partnership Grants in the SEE-Math Workshop, a highly effective summer program for math teachers in high-need school districts. The workshop’s combination of hands-on projects (such as origami, stained-glass painting and firing off homemade rockets) and visually-based computer software has been highly praised by participating teachers and state officials. In fact, the 2009 grant includes money for a research study to document the overall effectiveness of the SEE-Math teaching methods in Tennessee’s classrooms.
Economic Challenges Overcome
A team of finance students beat the bank in 2009 with a 62.29 percent return on their stock portfolio, out-performing the S&P 500 return by nearly 36 percent. Each year College of Business students participate in the TVA Investment Challenge, a program that doles out $400,000 each to universities in the Tennessee Valley Authority’s region and allows students to act as portfolio managers for those funds. Lipscomb’s 2009 return rate was better than all 24 participating universities in the Southeast. Lipscomb also won the performance title for "Rolling 3-Year Performance." Lipscomb’s total return over the last three years is 1.94 percent, compared to the S&P 500 return of -5.63 percent. Students experience the pressure of making real money decisions, must work independently and be accountable for their research and decisions.