Workshop — Engineering of Everyday Things — Guided inquiry labs

The “Engineering of Everyday Things” is an NSF funded project with the goal of developing a suite of lab exercises for the fluid and thermal sciences. The exercises use common devices such as a hair dryer and a blender. Common devices are used for two reasons. Since they are already familiar to the students, the purpose and operation of the devices are already apparent, saving time and allowing the students to focus on the principles rather than the equipment. The second reason is that the equipment is inexpensive. All of the exercises use a guided inquiry pedagogy in which key questions are posed to the students who then conduct experiments to try to find the answers. This workshop introduces the participants to the full suite of exercises. After receiving some basic background on qualitative reasoning, and some “warm-up” exercises the participants will have the opportunity to conduct two abbreviated exercises. This will be followed by a general discussion of their experience with them, the pedagogy in general and suggestions for improvements or additions to the suite.