Board 7: Work in Progress: Approaches to Introduce Biomedical Engineering Design to a Class with Diverse STEM Backgrounds

Angela Lai, Elaine Soohoo, Diane Nelson, Conrad Zapanta
2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings   unpublished
Diane Nelson is a post-doctorate in Chemical Engineering who is committed to exploring the unique properties of fluorinated materials and harnessing those properties to improve drug delivery vehicles. She has spent the last five years creating and testing her delivery system on various lung diseases, and is currently most passionate about the work she is doing to describe the process of drug deposition onto a surface. As a previous biomedical engineer turned chemical engineer, Diane has
more » ... d a unique perspective when it comes to utilizing a broad set of tools in both her research and classroom. She aspires to share her enthusiasm for biology and engineering through teaching and mentoring in the next stage of her career as faculty. Abstract Rising high school seniors from all over the country take summer college courses as a trial run for choosing potential majors before applying to colleges. In the initial offering of the summer course described in this paper, high school seniors took a six week, introductory, project-based course in biomedical engineering (BME). This introductory course incorporated both engineering design and clinical applications. Students were introduced to basic principles of BME design by exposure to the process of designing a medical device and its pathway to market. Students learned engineering design principles, hands on skills, and built a medical device prototype in a course-long project. Teams with common interests but varied technical skillsets were deliberately created to encourage discussion and collaboration. The course also included field trips and guest lecturers to demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of BME, as well as multiple oral presentations. At the beginning and end of this initial course offering, evaluations were completed to gauge the course's effectiveness in teaching students about BME. These results demonstrate successful approaches and provide feedback for improving future introductory summer high school BME courses.
doi:10.18260/1-2--32410 fatcat:wte2o2rtjbavbnapayowwvluve