1 WILDERNESS ENGINEERING: IDENTIFYING ENGINEERING IN EVERYDAY LIFE Christopher Saulnier, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, saulnier@mit.edu Aikaterini Bagiati, Massachusetts Institute of Technology J.G. Brisson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Introduction The use of wilderness expeditions to integrate students into new academic communities has a long history, particularly in New England, with the first known program occurring at Boston University in 1888 (Bell, Gass, Nafziger, & Starbuck, 2014). A review of literature by Bell et al. (2014) found that over 190 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada organize wilderness experiences to orient incoming first-year students to their new academic environment. This paper explores the outcomes associated with a design-based wilderness education program developed to integrate students into the academic community of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while developing engineering related skills. The program is structured to not just introduce visiting students to the MIT environment, but also to the academic and professional community of engineering by combining a rigorous engineering design experience with a short wilderness expedition. This paper considers the development of students engineering science worldview while participating in the program (i.e. the ability to apply principles of engineering science to understand and explain the world around them). We expect that the wilderness environment may provide an effective environment for students to practice design thinking while developing and applying an engineering science worldview. Literature Review Outdoor orientation programs are effective at helping students transition into new academic cultures, partially due to the small highly supportive communities and sense of place that are formed through the shared experience of a wilderness expedition (Austin, Martin, Mittelstaedt, Schanning, & Ogle, 2009; Bell et al., 2014; Wolfe & Kay, 2011). Wilderness experiences are an interesting candidate for engineering education as recent work in grounded cognition has strengthened the link between physical experience and science learning (Barsalou, 2008; Kontra, Lyons, Fischer, & Beilock, 2015). Extended wilderness experience also increases ill-structured problem solving ability (Collins, Sibthorp, & Gookin, 2016), a key competency for engineering students practicing design-thinking (Dym, Agogino, Eris, Frey, & Leifer, 2005). Alongside design thinking, leadership and communication skills are a focus of modern engineering education. Students in accredited programs “learn to function on multidisciplinary teams”, “communicate effectively”, and “understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental and social context” (ABET, 2013; Prados, Peterson, & Lattuca, 2005). Wilderness education pedagogy supports these learning objectives, as participants in wilderness education experiences typically express long-term increased competency in leadership, teamwork, self-confidence, and communication (Gass, Garvey, & Sugerman, 2003; Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997; Sibthorp, Furman, Paisley, & Gookin, 2008).