The Twenty-Ninth KKHTCNN Symposium on Civil Engineering
December 3-5, 2016, Hong Kong, China

Practice and Verification of Project Based Educational Program for Kenyan
Students
Ryunosuke Chino1 and Kyosuke Yamamoto 2
1

College of Engineering Systems, 2Faculity of Engineering, Information and Systems
1,2
University of tsukuba, Tsukuba Ibaraki, 305-8573, Japan1
s1311141@u.tsukuba.ac.jp, 2yamamoto_k@kz.tsukuba.ac.jp

ABSTRACT
Lack of civil engineers is one of the problems to develop infrastructures in Kenya. We focused on education to try the problem.
In particular, we use an idea of PBL (Project Based Learning) as reference, and carried out a workshop to help to disciplineengineers and verified learning effect. As a result, we confirmed an increase of academic ability and motivation to study.
1 INTRODUCTION
In Kenya, lack of civil engineers is a social issue. Kenyan government established JKUAT in 1981 of which mission istraining engineers to develop Kenya. Kenyan people rely on developed countries to construct large infrastructures such as dam,port, highroad and bridge. By contrast, they construct smaller ones by themselves. Therefore, it is hard for them to maintain
important infrastructures. There are problems of a rough dirt road (Fig.1), black cotton soil (Fig.2), blackout and so on.
We are exploring how we can help Kenya as students studying civil engineering. And we focused on education which isone of the cause of shortage of engineers.

Fig. 1. A rough dirt roadFig. 2. Black cotton soil

2 CONCEPT OF PBL
PBL (Project-Based Learning) is one of the education method which people deal with particular problem among team. It issaid that PBL enhance practical abilities to think by considering well through a solving process of real problem. Even though
we have knowledge we learned from books and lecture, it is difficult to apply them to something like a real structure. It is
possible for us to learn knowledge and practical application comprehensively through PBL. Learning how to apply theknowledge also makes you understand how important it is. This enhances motivation to learn.
And, in PBL teacher is just an adviser or a facilitator. Teacher doesn’t teach a lot. Therefore, group discussion necessarily
increase more and more. Because of this process, students can improve their creativity and practical skills by themselves.

3 METHOD
3.1 Making a paper bridge
We held a workshop of making a paper bridge as PBL. A Paper bridge is a bridge made of paper. Table1 is about basic
information of the workshop.

Visit place
The number of members
The number of participants
TargetTable 1. Basic information of the workshop
JKUAT
6people(5Japanese + 1Kenyan)
20people(5Kenyan × 4groups)
Undergraduate students in JKUAT who have basic knowledge about mechanics

Making and designing a paper bridge includes essence of structural mechanics which is importantcomponent of civil engineering. And it is considered to have high learning effect. Some of Japanese members
major in bridge. So we chose bridge as subject in this workshop. Target is Undergraduate students in JKUAT who
have basic knowledge about mechanics. The students who don’t major in structural mechanics can attend this workshop too. Inorder to enhance their motivation to learning, we divided 20 people into 4groups and have them compete with each group.
Each Japanese student joined each group as an adviser. Evaluation points are whether they design intentionally in accordancewith given conditions and whether they consider experiment well as stated below.
The flow of workshop are as follows.
[1] Lecture
Japanese students taught basic structural mechanics and how to design a bridge.
[2] Design
Each group designed cross section, whole dimensions, stiffeners and so on.
[3] Making a paper bridge
Using cardboards (thickness is 1mm) with glue gun, cutter and so on, they made their paper bridges.
[4] Experiment
They observed destruction property by putting loads on their bridge and considered the differences fromtheir design.
[5] Presentation
They had a presentation about their design, experiment and consideration. And all students evaluate thepresentations of each group and the ranking of each group was decided.

Fig. 1. Paper bridge

Fig. 2. Experiment

3.2 Test
In order to verify the learning effect of this workshop, we carried out tests two times before and after theworkshop. Shift of score is one of the index to evaluate the learning effect. Test problems were made by using
Japanese national civil service examination as a reference. Problems which require basic and wide range of knowledge are
selected. There are 11 problems, and max is 11 points. Table2 shows a correspondence of problem number to kind ofproblem.

Table 2. A correspondence of problem number to kind of problem
Problem number
Kind of problem
Problem number
Kind of problem
12345
6

Pure tension
Bending moment
Second moment of area
Deflection of a beam
Deflection of a beam
Buckling

78910
11Buckling
Pure tension
Bending moment
Second moment of area
Section modulus

4 RESULTS & DISCUSSION
4.1 Test results
Table3 shows lowest point, highest point and average of first and second test. Fig.3 shows correct answer ratio for eachproblem. We carried out a questionnaire about study hours, and Fig.4 shows a relationship between study hours and an increaseof score.
Table 3. Test Result
Lowest Point

Highest Point

AverageFirst Test

163.35

Second Test

511

8.35

Fig. 3 . Correct answer ratio for each problem

Fig. 4. Relation between the study hours
and the increase of score
Student Number
1-4
5-9

10-15

16-19

Department

Civil Engineering
AgriculturalEngineering
Soil, Water andEnvironmental
Engineering
Biomechanical andProcessing
Engineering
Architecture

20Fig. 5. Score of each JKUAT students and correspondence of the student number to the department

According to the Fig.3, correct answer ratio increases obviously, and the table3 says that average rises by 5points. From theFig.4, the relation have positive correlation (correlation coefficient≒0.35). According to Fig.5, students majoring civilengineering scored high points relatively in the first test. However, in the second test, a distribution of score look alike. Thismeans that the level of this workshop would be just right for the students.
From the above, this workshop would have learning effect.
4.2 Comments and attitude of applicants
We got comments from JKUAT students about this workshop. Table4 shows some examples of the comments.

1
2
3
4
5

Table 4. Comments from JKUAT students
Great workshop. It reveals real situations which require application of engineering skills learnt during the course work.
In this workshop we made bridge bearing approximately 20kg. A small goat weigh approximately 20kg. So we canmake bridges goats can cross. We are already engineers!
The bridge project is a promising project. It should be spread to other nations to increase the knowledge of bridge
construction..
Great workshop. It should happen more often.
The first exam makes one attentive to the lecture. The second exam is good as it confirms one has understood. The
practical is good it ensure one doesn’t forget things they have been taught.

Judging from these comments, this workshop has not a little component of educating civil engineers. This results accord withour purpose of training civil engineers.
And I felt that the motivation to the workshop of JKUAT students was so high. At all process of design, assembling a paper
bridge, experiment and presentation, group discussion necessarily occurred. Therefore, they worked on the tasks initiatively.
5 CONCLUSIONS-We confirmed good learning effect of PBL. Furthermore, there are added value of increasing motivation and learning
practical skill.
-This is first step, so our research is about only Kenya. However, we it is necessary to move the other developing countries-Technical issues still remains. Japanese members don’t have so much knowledge about civil engineering, and it wasdifficult to answer questions from JKUAT students exactly. It is necessary to study hard. Besides, this time we used test score as
an index to evaluate learning effect. However, increasing the test score does not necessarily means training civil engineers. This
verification with other new index is needed as prospects for the future. It’s better to use an indicator which can assess the effectof disciplining civil engineers quantitatively.
6 REFERENCES[1] http://www.mns.kyutech.ac.jp/~nakao-m/pbl/about.html[2] https://www.tfu.ac.jp/liaison/edu/navi_PDF/navi06-05.pdf[3] Hukubayashi Yoshinori, Kimura ryo. (2009). Development of method to convey technique for maintenance of small-scale
infrastructures of developing countries’ rural part. Collection C of papers of Japan Society of Civil Engineers. Vol. 65 No.2,550-563. (Japanese)[4]Yomoda Atsushi. (2000). Cooperation of educational research of Agricultural engineering field at JKUAT. Agriculturalengineering journal. Vol. 68 No. 9 P 986-989 (Japanese)[5] Tauchi Akira. (1986). Cooperation of technique for Africa, Agricultural engineering journal. Vol. 54 No.1 P 47-54, a1(Japanese)