Community service learning and K-12 training and enhancement: creating a new type of engineer

The number of engineering degrees awarded in recent years has been steadily decreasing. This is due in part to the lack of motivation to pursue engineering careers exhibited by K-12 students and to retention problems experienced by engineering colleges in general. Many engineering colleges are addressing this situation through the development of out-reach programs that seek to motivate K-12 students to pursue engineering careers and through curriculum enhancements that seek to provide meaningful, integrated design experiences to engineering students. In this essay, I present the concept of community learning as a means to address both, the retention problem and the K-12 motivation problem. Several examples of community learning strategies that I have been implementing with the help of faculty members and engineering students at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez are presented.