Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology
10-Minute Paper
Benjamin D. Chambers
Collegiate Assistant Professor
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
The lives of domestic arthropods are dependent upon the decisions that engineers and designers make. This has implications for pest management, ecology, and occupant experiences. A group of first year undergraduate engineering students was given a thought prompt with questions to consider arthropod experiences in buildings. A week later, they were asked to select an arthropod they often see at home or at school, then create an artistic interpretation of its experience living in a building. Students also completed a short written prompt and participated in a discussion about their artwork and intent. A thematic analysis of the artwork and responses explored student conceptions of the relationships between arthropods, buildings, and humans. Many students explored the experience through literal points of view. With traditional pest arthropods, the looming threat of violence from humans was a common theme, and vice versa. Interactions with buildings were largely based on structural features, but some did extend to more complicated systems, such as air handling utilities. Discussion was initially characterized by negative experiences, but also explored themes related to engineering, such as design for pest management. These results provide context and information for designing creativity-based pedagogical approaches that can be used to develop student understanding of the interactions of engineered and ecological systems. These activities may help engineering students make meaningful and memorable connections to the arthropod life that will ultimately inhabit or invade their engineering designs.