Embedding the social sciences in engineering education: collaboration with a Politics degree

This paper reports reflections on the successful adaptation of the CDIO pedagogy to a module offered as part of a Politics and International Relations (IR) degree. CDIO has been highly successful in engineering education, enhancing engagement, attainment, satisfaction and employability, by enabling students to learn engineering science through engineering practice. The potential to achieve similar outcomes in political science, through political practice, led the author to develop the Transport: Politics and Society module. With a focus on transport studies, a subject that is naturally interdisciplinary in both academic study and industry practice, this module presents an ideal opportunity for collaboration between engineering and the social sciences. As such, this paper describes the module curriculum, considering content and pedagogy. The paper considers if the format and content of this module could appeal to engineering and social science students alike, enabling engineering graduates to understand and respond to the changing cultural, social and political context in which they operate, whilst providing social scientists with invaluable insights into and connection with industry and the workplace. The paper offers this module as a template which, if implemented within engineering programmes, could support the goal of furthering the aim of CDIO 3.0 to develop, embed and enhance the role of the social sciences in engineering education (Malmqvist et al, 2022)

Embedding the social sciences in engineering education: collaboration with a Politics degree.

This paper reports reflections on the successful adaptation of the CDIO pedagogy to a module offered as part of a Politics and International Relations (IR) degree. CDIO has been highly successful in engineering education, enhancing engagement, attainment, satisfaction and employability, by enabling students to learn engineering science through engineering practice. The potential to achieve similar outcomes in political science, through political practice, led the author to develop the Transport: Politics and Society module. With a focus on transport studies, a subject that is naturally interdisciplinary in both academic study and industry practice, this module presents an ideal opportunity for collaboration between engineering and the social sciences. As such, this paper describes the module curriculum, considering content and pedagogy. The paper considers if the format and content of this module could appeal to engineering and social science students alike, enabling engineering graduates to understand and respond to the changing cultural, social and political context in which they operate, whilst providing social scientists with invaluable insights into and connection with industry and the workplace. The paper offers this module as a template which, if implemented within engineering programmes, could support the goal of furthering the aim of CDIO 3.0 to develop, embed and enhance the role of the social sciences in engineering education (Malmqvist et al, 2022)

Travel behaviour science

What is Travel Behaviour Science?  How can Travel Behaviour Science help us to shape the future of mobility?   In this thought-provoking presentation, Dr Kenyon introduces four key influences on travel behaviour and considers if the pandemic is unlikely to change our behaviour in the long term

Dynamical evolution of thin dispersion-dominated planetesimal disks

We study the dynamics of a vertically thin, dispersion-dominated disk of planetesimals with eccentricities $e$ and inclinations $i$ (normalized in Hill units) satisfying $e >> 1$, $i << e^{-2} << 1$. This situation may be typical for e.g. a population of protoplanetary cores in the end of the oligarchic phase of planet formation. In this regime of orbital parameters planetesimal scattering has an anisotropic character and strongly differs from scattering in thick ($i ~ e$) disks. We derive analytical expressions for the planetesimal scattering coefficients and compare them with numerical calculations. We find significant discrepancies in the inclination scattering coefficients obtained by the two approaches and ascribe this difference to the effects not accounted for in the analytical calculation: multiple scattering events (temporary captures, which may be relevant for the production of distant planetary satellites outside the Hill sphere) and distant interaction of planetesimals prior to their close encounter. Our calculations show that the inclination of a thin, dispersion-dominated planetesimal disk grows exponentially on a very short time scale implying that (1) such disks must be very short-lived and (2) planetesimal accretion in this dynamical phase is insignificant. Our results are also applicable to the dynamics of shear-dominated disks switching to the dispersion-dominated regime.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, submitted to A

Burglary project

This report outlines the process and findings from an innovative project for students. This work was part of the curriculum and involved students working with West Yorkshire Police as part of the safer Leeds project in designing and making a film for students n crime prevention and personal safety in Leed

Planet formation around stars of various masses: Hot super-Earths

We consider trends resulting from two formation mechanisms for short-period super-Earths: planet-planet scattering and migration. We model scenarios where these planets originate near the snow line in ``cold finger'' circumstellar disks. Low-mass planet-planet scattering excites planets to low periastron orbits only for lower mass stars. With long circularisation times, these planets reside on long-period eccentric orbits. Closer formation regions mean planets that reach short-period orbits by migration are most common around low-mass stars. Above ~1 Solar mass, planets massive enough to migrate to close-in orbits before the gas disk dissipates are above the critical mass for gas giant formation. Thus, there is an upper stellar mass limit for short-period super-Earths that form by migration. If disk masses are distributed as a power law, planet frequency increases with metallicity because most disks have low masses. For disk masses distributed around a relatively high mass, planet frequency decreases with increasing metallicity. As icy planets migrate, they shepherd interior objects toward the star, which grow to ~1 Earth mass. In contrast to icy migrators, surviving shepherded planets are rocky. Upon reaching short-period orbits, planets are subject to evaporation processes. The closest planets may be reduced to rocky or icy cores. Low-mass stars have lower EUV luminosities, so the level of evaporation decreases with decreasing stellar mass.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. 13 pages of emulateap