Teaching freshmen to write technical reports and to navigate the library: a Win-Win situation

The Freshman class at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Engineering, USA, were assigned a library research project to study one of ten famous technological disasters in the 20th Century as part of their Engineering 11 Introduction to Engineering course in the fall term of 1996. Their research reports were to discuss both the technological or design failures that contributed to the disasters and to discuss the social and ethical implications of these failures. This assignment required the students to begin to learn to analyze technology and design, and to start learning how to write a technical report. It also required them to consider the larger social implications of applied technology and their responsibility to people and communities around the world as prospective engineers. This project is the result of several months of work and collaboration between the School of Engineering and the Bevier Engineering Library and responds to the University of Pittsburgh's emphasis on undergraduate education.