AC 2007-920: INTRODUCING GLOBAL STEWARDSHIP TO ENGINEERING STUDENTS IN THE ARAB WORLD: THE PETROLEUM INSTITUTE'S STEPS PROGRAM FOCUSES ON SUSTAINABILITY

The STEPS Program (Strategies for Engineering Problem Solving) at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi introduces second-year student design teams to authentic engineering problem solving in the 21 st century, with special emphasis on environmental and humanitarian issues facing engineers in both our local and broader global communities. The responsibilities of professional global engineers is stressed, including stewardship of our planet and its resources; the health, safety, and welfare of its inhabitants; engineering ethics, and intercultural communication. Student teams are mentored through an “experience” of engineering design methodology that incorporates creativity and inventiveness, technical thinking, decision-making, communications skills, and graphical demonstration. The authors wanted to know what our Arab engineering students knew about sustainability. What were their perceptions about their responsibilities as engineers in the 21 st century? Did they care? What’s being done to foster awareness in this part of the world? Should environmental sustainability and global stewardship be at the core of our engineering design program? How could we introduce our students to humanitarian engineering? The answers to these questions along with data collected over two semesters are discussed in this paper. The Fall 2006 STEPS II project involved the development of a Plastics Recycling Plan for the Petroleum Institute, with applications locally and globally. The project exposed students to the concept of reusable energy resources, the societal impact of recycling, environmental issues in engineering design, data collection and analysis, manufacturing processes, safety, modeling techniques, graphics communication as well as economic considerations. At the beginning of the course our students were uneducated about the seriousness of the plastics waste problem, relatively unaware of what was happening at the PI and in their community with regard to recycling, and doubtful that their personal efforts could produce an innovative and effective solution to a serious global dilemma. They had limited vision with regard to researching the topic, and were perplexed by the open-ended nature of the project. Throughout the semester the students gained confidence in their abilities as global citizens and engineers to help solve global problems facing their generation and future generations. They gradually learned how to think “outside the box” about possible solutions, and were excited about the possibility of real implementation of their ideas in the real world. The students “footwork” and visibility on campus and in the community at large was an important first step in building public awareness. Details of the experience the students went through in this project and their interactions with the community and the PI administration are discussed in this article. The Petroleum Institute’s STEPS Program: The Challenge of Translating Western Models into Effective Curricula in the Arab World The STEPS Program (Strategies for Team-Based Engineering Problem-Solving) is designed to introduce engineering students at the Petroleum Institute to the theoretical and intellectual concepts as well as the practical methods used in engineering design in an integrated two P ge 12968.2 semester sequence at a very early stage in their engineering education. The STEPS program is unique to the United Arab Emirates, and is the first of its kind in the Arabian Gulf region. Teaching students the concepts and practices required to successfully tackle an open-ended engineering design problem is one of the more challenging jobs for any engineering educator but is especially challenging when the students belong to a culture vastly different from their Western counterparts in origin, experience, and custom. This paper describes the process of establishing a new curriculum for the STEPS program designed to address our students’ needs to develop and exercise open-ended problem-solving skills, develop environmental sensitivity in engineering design, perform research that supports their decision-making, and work on interdisciplinary teams to tackle authentic problems in their local and global careers. With funding from a consortium of major oil companies including The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Shell, BP, and JODCO and led by a team from the Colorado School of Mines, the Petroleum Institute was established in 2001. The goals of the Institute include educating United Arab Emirates nationals in fields of engineering (Chemical, Electrical, Mechanical, Petroleum and Petroleum Geosciences) that will serve the on-going needs of the oil and gas industry in the Gulf region. Experienced design faculty from the Colorado School of Mines were brought to the Petroleum Institute in the fall of 2003 to foster and implement a program modeled after the CSM EPICS Program (Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence). As expected, many of the paradigms and expectations consistent with Western engineering design programs simply do not yield the same outcomes in the Arab culture. Our students have exhibited different strengths and weaknesses from their Western counterparts. For instance, our students’ teamwork is enhanced by their heritage in the etiquette of Arab friendship, and oral presentations are strong and natural as a result of an oral cultural orientation. On the other hand, writing skills are naturally impeded by the fact that English is their second language. The design-and-build nature of the projects is often hindered by a lack of familiarity with tools and construction techniques. And so on. The authors are constantly adapting and modifying the course content and delivery methodologies in order to provide appropriate learning outcomes for our students. Rationale for the Development of a New Model in STEPS II Need to Develop Independent Open-ended Problem-solving Skills As part of a two-semester sequence, STEPS I presents students with a well-defined design-andbuild problem, and then leads them through the process using the concepts of guided design. The students are also given extensive instruction in the application of soft skills that are important to successful design, namely teamwork, project planning, and professional oral and written communications. Faculty advisors from engineering and communications programs serve the role as mentors for this project. During the first three years of the program’s development, the STEPS II semester was characterized by a similar format to STEPS I, but with discipline specific design-and-build projects. After three years the program’s new Coordinator, Dr. Jamal Ahmad, and Co-mentor, Dr. Suzanne Scott, looked for ways to improve STEPS II. Page 12968.3 By the fall of 2006, the authors had identified some problem areas in our curriculum. The supposedly sequential two semesters were looking too much alike. Although our students were confronted with more technically challenging discipline specific projects in the second semester, they were still not thinking creatively about problem solutions. They had difficulty applying their scientific and mathematical skills to their project problems. Their research and data collection efforts rarely extended beyond the Internet. Students had difficulty seeing their ideas and project solutions as having any impact or effect on anyone beyond their team and the semester. Although by the end of STEPS I most of the students were willing to concede that engineering problems often have many possible solutions, in STEPS II they still needed a great deal of guidance thinking “outside the box.” They wanted us to supply them with “the right answers.” Kasim Randeree, a former lecturer in the College of Engineering at UAE University identified these characteristics. “Students in the UAE exhibit certain characteristics emerging from a variety of cultural and historical traditions, as well as from methodologies of education used at the pre-tertiary levels. These characteristics include expecting to be passive recipients of taught information and lack of independence in their approach to problem solving.” 1 We realized that we needed to come up with a model that helped our students develop their open-ended problem-solving skills. In STEPS I, the projects thus far had included design models, such as solar miniature race cars, Rube Goldberg machines, and an egg relocation device. The students expected STEPS II to follow the same somewhat formulaic design sequence within the same parameters. We decided that we needed to give the students a sense of more authentic, less-defined engineering problems. We needed a theme that would connect their thinking with their authentic community, not just with their teammates in the classroom. Need to Teach Environmental Sensitivity in Engineering Design Abu Dhabi and the larger UAE have experienced rapid growth in the past 3 decades. This oilrich nation has experienced unprecedented economic and social development, especially in the urban areas of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Along with rapid modernization, urban development, and 5% per year population increases, the cause for sustainable development and waste management has recently become vocalized in a few agencies and concerned groups. One agency taking up the cause of sustainable development, the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), is a nongovernment group located in Dubai that encourages education for sustainable development, waste management, conservation, renewable energy production, and other issues, by targeting stakeholders such as the UAE government, businesses, communities and civil society groups. 2 While the EEG has spearheaded community projects in recycling, and has mounted awareness campaigns in the Dubai area, we were aware of little activity in our Abu Dhabi community. We wondered what our students knew about sustainability. What were their perceptions about their responsibilities as engineers in the