Effort 1 - Infusion and Modification

Engaged students are learning students!

Initial implementation of modified curriculum has began in the MET 110: Introduction to Metallurgical Engineering class and MET 231: Structure and Properties of Materials Lab.

MET 110 is an introductory course for incoming freshmen in metallurgical engineering covering the history of, career opportunities in, and engineering practices of metallurgical engineering. This course will include group projects and presentations, problem solving, engineering ethics, technical reports and field trips.

The modified curriculum includes integrating a glass working lab, welding lab, casting lab, heat treatment lab, and optical microscopy lab. The lab approach implemented kinesthetic learning to promote student engagement and curiosity that would drive investigation when writing formal lab reports. To learn more about glass working click here.

MET 231 is a second term or second year (depending on each student's journey) Metallurgical Engineering course. A laboratory involving quantitative metallography, heat treating practice, mechanical property measurements and metallurgical design of the thermal mechanical treatment of metals.

The modified curriculum infuses a novel exploratory kinesthetic lab, Metal Clay, into the course. The Metal Clay lab utilizes a Bronze Clay, a combination of bronze metal and cellulose binder, which gives the students the opportunity to work their hands and technical tools to manipulate the clay from a small blob of clay to a variety of artistic pieces.

In addition to creating an artistic piece the students learned about the various tools used for metal clay, the chemistry of the clay, the bronze phase diagram, and sintering of metals. The MET 231 lab approach implemented kinesthetic learning to assist student's understanding of the challenges faced when physically manipulating complex material systems (i.e. Bronze or Copper Clay).