Garden City– Design Throughout The Curriculum

Abstract

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rowan University, with support from NSF, has adopted "Sooner City", a virtual city developed by the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science at the University of Oklahoma. A more portable version of Sooner City has been developed, which makes it easier to adopt at other institutions. Called "Garden City" at Rowan, the virtual city is used in the undergraduate civil engineering program. Faculty use Garden City to demonstrate the context (i.e., human communities) of many civil engineering projects and provide continuity for design projects that extend over multiple courses. Undergraduates go to the Garden City website to access projects and related data and design information. They are also able to store reports at the website, creating an electronic portfolio. Finally, the Garden City website provides a central location for course webpages, tutorials, modules etc. The purpose of this paper is to provide detail on the Garden City project, particularly as it affects teaching design principles throughout the curriculum.