The Impact of Project-Based Service Learning in a Native American Community on Student Performance in Civil Engineering Capstone Design

Three educational institutions in South Dakota are collaborating to develop pre-engineering courses to increase the enrollment and success of students transferring from Oglala Lakota College (OLC) to 4-year bachelor degree programs in science and engineering at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) and South Dakota State University through a grant from the National Science Foundation Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP). Activities of this grant have led to a partnership with the native-led Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (TVCDC) and have provided significant opportunities for students at OLC and SDSMT in the areas of civil engineering and sustainability. The most recent opportunity includes incorporating TVCDC's plans for an 800-person net-zero regenerative community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation into the Capstone Design course at SDSMT. The project includes sustainable design objectives in wastewater treatment, rainwater harvesting, and the use of straw bale and compressed earth walls as renewable building materials for phase I of the planned community. Four teams of students working on the regenerative community and four teams of students working on a more traditional capstone design project completed proposals and their first progress reports during the Fall 2012 semester. The Comprehensive Assessment of Team-Member Effectiveness (CATME) instrument was administered twice during the semester to evaluate team functioning. A comparison of the data for the two capstone projects is presented. Results from these surveys indicate students working on the regenerative community project were more positive and consistent with the behavioral and satisfaction categories within the peer evaluation survey.