Work in progress: establishing an engineering design center for service-learning at Western Michigan University

This paper describes the first-year activities of the engineering design center for service-learning jointly established by the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the College of Education at Western Michigan University. The Center works in partnership with the local K-12 school system and campus volunteer groups to provide teaching materials, manipulatives, training, and after-school activities to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction. The materials allow K-12 teachers to engage their students in hands-on learning of STEM topics, are designed to be age appropriate, and meet applicable state and school instructional standards. The center also integrates service-learning within the engineering curriculum. The outcomes for education students are that these future teachers will be capable of describing the work of engineers and technologists to K-12 students, and are able to use stimulating examples of real-world engineering and technology in teaching STEM topics. Engineering students can see an immediate impact of their work in the community outside their regular campus-related engineering studies.