Promoting engineering and science via community based PBL projects

: An ongoing, long-term public awareness campaign is needed to raise the profile of engineers and scientists in the eyes of the general public to address the issue of declining enrolment in engineering and science in Universities in most industrialised countries. One way of promoting engineering and science to the general public is to exhibit the accomplishments of engineering and science students' projects in public institutions.\ud \ud In Semester 2, 2009, 2nd year EEE students at Victoria University (VU) worked with staff (client) at Scienceworks museum in Victoria to design, develop and deliver products for exhibition to promote Engineering and Science to the general public via their Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) Problem Based Learning (PBL) projects. This paper describes the PBL projects and gives a summary of the interactions between the students and their client. The whole exercise has been well received by the students and the client. VU and Sciencworks Museum will work together again in 2010 and beyond to develop more projects to promote engineering and science. ---The 21st Annual Conference for the Australasian Association for Engineering Education was held on 5-8 December 2010, Sydney, Australia, and was subtitled: AaeE 2010: Past, Present, Future - The 'Keys' to Engineering Education Research and Practic