Service Learning for Community Engagement: An Interdisciplinary Approach for Engineering Education

Abstract Interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate students and faculty from different disciplines including civil, electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering as well as biology, business administration, chemistry, and social sciences has been working in communities in Puerto Rico since 2003 as part of an effort from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez to engage into those communities with an innovative educational approach in service learning. The application of service learning in real world scenarios is guided through the use of the participative action research methodology that has been taught by the University Institute for Community Development. This methodology has been complemented with the engineering skills taught in undergraduate courses. Interdisciplinary teams are created to evaluate infrastructure as well as social and environmental conditions for the development and implementation of practical and feasible solutions to the needs of low-income citizens. The engineering students were also motivated in community service through the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program. This paper describes the academic as well as the administrative structure developed by the faculty and students from the University Institute for Community Development and EPICS to accomplish interdisciplinary engineering education at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM). In addition, several types of projects are described to illustrate the extend of the approach and the challenges that interdisciplinary participants, both faculty and students, faced to achieve service teaching and learning