CAIRDE - Engineering in Society, Ethics and Community Outreach

Course Director: Dr Eoin King (established by Professor Abhay Pandit) 
Course Title: BE in Mechanical Engineering/BE in Biomedical Engineering 
Subject: CAIRDE - Engineering in Society, Ethics and Community Outreach 
Year: 2nd Year 
Participants: 170 Students 
Hours: Lectures 6 hours, Tutorials 2 hours, 10 hours community/societal engagement 
Credits: 3 Ects 
Length: 1 Semesters 
Community Partners: Students take responsibility in initiating community partnership and/or environmental initiatives. 

Internationally, CAIRDE is a pioneer programme for service learning amongst engineering students in and has been recognized internationally as being an exceptional student community engagement initiative by being awarded the MacJannet Prize awarded by the Talloires Network in 2010. 

The Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering degree at NUI Galway has a service learning module incorporated into its programme, giving students experiential learning while applying academic knowledge. CAIRDE, Community Awareness Initiatives Responsibility-Directed by Engineers, was designed as a way for students to identify a need in their community and define a project with very distinct goals. Since the programme's inception, over 1200 students have taken part in service learning projects, devoting over 12,000 hours of service to local communities. The students have made tremendous strides in taking an active role in society and have gained strong relationships with their community partners. CAIRDE has enabled students to build a link between the university and community, showing how collaboration between the two can yield positive results that are reciprocally beneficial. Since 2017 projects with an environmental focus have also been undertaken – these projects study waste generation, (single-use plastics primarily), and non-essential energy usage with a view to understanding their environmental impact and proposing ways, including designing solutions, to reduce it. 

Students of the CAIRDE programme are expected to take on a great deal of responsibility in the facilitation of their service learning project. They must develop a project that enables them to utilise their engineering skills in order to address a real need for an individual or group in the broader community or an environmental problem. By putting this knowledge into action, students work directly with the beneficiaries of the project and/or the general public, ensuring their needs are indentified through engagement and surveys  and then met through the work conducted. Projects vary in terms of the beneficiaries and type of work students engage in. In respect of projects that are community service focused some may work with established organizations such as Enable Ireland, Saint Vincent de Paul, The Simon Community, National Council for the Blind Ireland and youth cafes. Others direct their efforts towards supporting local schools, nursing homes, hospitals, libraries, playgrounds and athletic clubs. Some students choose to address the needs of a specific individual by either contributing to personal care or improving one's quality of life. The success of  projects has gained CAIRDE such great recognition that the number of community organizations wishing to collaborate with the program continues to increase. 

CAIRDE demonstrates the value of service learning, as it requires student participants to use and develop "soft skills" that are invaluable to engineers but often difficult to teach in a traditional classroom setting. These "soft skills" include project management, task analysis and interpersonal skills as well as practicing shared decision-making and being able to reflect on their learning and experiences. An important aspect of the projects is the inclusion of communication and promotion activities and output (posters, webpages, media, etc.) that make the user and/or target audience aware of the project’s outputs – both for educational and behavior influencing purposes. 

The students are able to apply knowledge to a specific, "real" project for the first time, helping them view their academic preparation in a new light. All the while, CAIRDE is fostering a greater understanding of community and environmental concerns  and what methods can be taken to address these needs. 

CAIRDE places great emphasis on how the students understand their impact on society and on the environment. Therefore, reflection plays a central role to the service learning process. In the reflection process, students tie in what they are learning about the community and their impact of the worl they live on as well as how they can further develop their engineering skills. Students communicate their project’s outcome s in order to share this reflection with the greater educational community, building awareness and demonstrating to their peers how university students can make a difference in their surrounding communities and the environment. 

The following recently published articled describes the programme in greater detail: 

Wallen, M and Pandit, A (2009), "Encouraging undergraduate engineering students towards civic engagement", European Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 141-8.