Designing a portable technical literacy course for use in California

Summary form only given. The project discussed has developed a technical literacy course for a non-technical population of students. The focus is to draw examples of engineering systems from the local community so that students already have a "users" understanding of presented systems. First the students explore and study how a particular system works (i.e. how local bridges support loads), and then the basic science is introduced as needed to support the understanding of the application. Demonstrations, hands-on exercises, and tours of local engineering systems are used to engage the students. The course ideas are portable since all colleges have some examples of engineering systems locally.