Systems and global engineering: Results of a pilot study for high school students and teachers

This three-year project is designed to engage high school classes in New Jersey and elsewhere in a geographically-distributed systems engineering design project that addresses relevant, social challenges of interest to students worldwide. Collaborating with others around the world to develop a solution to an engineering problem, students are introduced to systems-thinking, team work, effective communication and other 21^st century workforce skills. This innovative project aims to increase the number of students interested in pursuing engineering as a career and to increase the pool of teachers familiar with engineering design and systems thinking. This paper presents the findings from the first part of the pilot study; results of the fall 2008 implementation of the module Introduction to the Core Concepts of Systems Engineering.