Sooner City—Design Across the Curriculum

Abstract

AbstractThe School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science (CEES) at the University of Oklahoma (OU) has been developing a curriculum reform project entitled Sooner City since Spring 1997; it was implemented in Fall 1998. For the project, incoming freshman are given a plat of land that is turned into a blueprint for critical infrastructure segments of the city. Design tasks include all facets of the traditional civil engineering program, ranging from sewer and water infrastructure to steel buildings. The project is unique in that it threads a common, four‐year design theme throughout the curriculum, yet does so in a flexible, cost‐effective manner; it unifies the curriculum and allows material learned in early courses to carry forward; and it provides a natural forum for incorporating other pedagogical reform initiatives, such as just‐in‐time learning, collaborative learning, and active learning with in‐class use of laptops. A primary goal is to produce graduates who consistently think at a higher level, and who are thus capable of handling open‐ended design projects that require creativity, self‐analysis, and awareness of economic, social, and political issues. The extent to which the Sooner City project meets this goal is being assessed through formative and summative evaluations by an external reviewer.