Enhancing Construction Education: Implementing Habitat for Humanity Projects as Service-Learning for Construction Materials

Service-learning is considered a valuable approach in applying concepts from the higher education classroom in real-world settings, and has become quite common in some disciplines. Engineering educators in the United States are making efforts to incorporate service-learning activities and to study their benefits for student learning and engagement. This article describes the design and results of implementing a Habitat for Humanity service-learning project in an introductory construction materials course. Study results collected from two semesters of service-learning implementation show students respond positively to the hands-on active learning of real-world activities related to the course content. Service-learning activities in particular were not only found to enhance student learning and interpersonal skills, but also increase student awareness of their intended profession and society as a whole. Overall, students reported positive perceptions of the service-learning experience and its contribution to their learning of course concepts.