CEE 190 Fall 2023
CEE 190 Project-based Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering
In CEE 190 you will develop critical thinking and engineering problem solving skills by exploring and proposing sustainable solutions to current civil and environmental engineering problems facing the University of Illinois campus community. This class will help you begin to identify yourselves as civil and environmental engineers, provide pre-requisite content for future CEE classes, and prepare you for opportunities for research and summer internships during your undergraduate studies.
Course Organization
We have organized the entire semester into one Module for each week. You can access these from the table below.
| Week 1: | Week 2: | Week 3: National Day No CLass | Week 4: |
| Week 5: | Week 6: | Week 7: | Week 8: |
| Week 9: | Week 10: | Week 11: | Week 12: |
| Week 13: | Week 14: | Week 15: | Final Report due Dec 28 |
Suggestions to improve your CEE 190 Experience
Links to various components to the course are embedded in the text sections below.
The Calendar link (right) provides another way to access the schedule with links to the relevant material.
The CEE190 course syllabus Download CEE190 course syllabus can be downloaded here.
In this course we will use the Canvas Learning Management system. Here is a link to a guide to help students navigate and use tools in Canvas. Links to an external site.
Course assignments will be submitted and graded on Gradescope. www.gradescope.com Links to an external site. Use code PX72Z4 to enroll in the course. Here are instructions on how to sign up for this course in GradeScope. Here is a document describing how to submit assignments to GradeScope Download document describing how to submit assignments to GradeScope.
All Lectures will be on Zoom.
Zoom Section:
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/85083818332?pwd=SjYyYzN3b3BveGEwTzJGQUc2ZkdLUT09
Links to an external site.
Zoom meeting ID: 850 8381 8332 Password: CEE190
All lectures and case studies will be recorded and made available for students to access and review. In CEE 190 we will have a variety of activities and exercises. We will have eight Case Studies and four Field Trips. The purposes of case studies are to (1) expose students to the various disciplines in civil and environmental engineering, (2) provide students pre-lecture readings to deepen background in CEE, and (3) actively engage students in discussion-driven case study lectures that demonstrates and teaches them the critical thinking process that leads to innovative solutions. The links below will take you to the required pre-lecture readings, pre-lecture videos and quizzes for these, as well as the lecture slides and any supplemental material and the recordings of the case study or field trip.
Pre-lecture videos: Several lectures will have videos that you need to watch before the lecture. These pre-lecture videos are available in the weekly modules.
Lecture Slides: Slide decks for each lecture will be available for you to download here. I have added a MediaSpace channel where I have uploaded videos from the course. Here is a link to subscribe https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/channel/CEE+190+ZJUI+Fall+2023/310094792/subscribe)
Case Studies and Field Trips: The case studies and field trips are listed in the weekly modules.
We will have a variety of assignments in CEE 190 as described below. Each assignment type in this course is designed to build skills and help students achieve the learning objectives of the course. All assignments must be turned into Gradescope. The Label for each assignment type is link to the module for those assignments
Journal: The purpose of journal assignments is to guide students through the engineering ideation process. In this course, that journaling process and discussion section charrettes first assist students and then eventually teams to come up with well-defined project ideas.
Discussion: The purpose of discussion assignments is to instruct students individually how to first compose an engineering proposal and then a technical report. The typical sections of a technical report include executive summary, introduction, objectives, scope, schedule, results, and conclusions.
Skills: The purpose of the skill assignments are to introduce important competencies to students such as data analysis and visualization, professional correspondence, entrepreneurial thinking,
Milestone Reports: The purpose of milestone report assignments are to guide student teams toward a final technical report on their chosen project idea. Milestone reports start with a project proposal, then an interim report and culminates in a final report. Peer review and instructor feedback is provided for each deliverable. Milestone three also includes a final poster that must be presented to external judges. I will provide a link to example Milestone reports from previous years.
Other Reference Tools
Over the course of the semester there may be some supplemental materials that will be useful. For example, I have provided links to some documents that describe the ASCE reference style. These materials will be available here.
Office Hours
Prof. Schmidt: 10:00 PM - 11:30 PM Tue (China Time) (Zoom)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/83205568273?pwd=N3RJNnJ0TktZcEs5MXF1dHdsWjYvdz09
Links to an external site.
Meeting ID: 832 0556 8273
Password: CEEHELP
TA Zoom Office Hours:
Joyce Li (Zoom) UPDATE (China Time) UPDATE
Join Zoom Meeting
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/86973394526?pwd=UXhHWnlPVFFGSFc5ZGpqRHhacmltdz09
Links to an external site.
Meeting ID: 869 7339 4526
Password: 283720
Shunxin Weng Tuesday 4:00 – 5:00 PM (China Time)
Tianyi Xu Tuesday 07:00 – 08:30 PM (China Time)