Bringing Construction Experience into the Classroom

Construction experience exposes students to construction methods and leads to an appreciation of construction capabilities, challenges and limitations. Actual construction experiences also tend to be more interesting and memorable than a typical classroom lecture. However, it is often difficult to bring construction experiences into the academic classroom. This paper describes how a variety of construction experiences are incorporated into several undergraduate courses in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the United States Air Force Academy. The construction experiences vary from hands-on summer activities and classroom demonstrations to construction site field trips and guest speakers from the construction industry. These experiences are integrated into the curriculum beginning with a hands-on course during the summer after the sophomore year and continuing through the capstone course in the final senior semester.