1423 Powhatan St., Suite 1
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Phone (703) 836-6727
Fax (703) 836-7491
Email: asnehq@navalengineers.org

 

ASNE is the leading professional engineering society for engineers, scientists and allied professionals who conceive, design, develop, test, construct, outfit, operate and maintain complex naval and maritime ships, submarines and aircraft and their associated systems and subsystems.  ASNE also serves the educators who train the professionals, researchers who develop related technology, and students who are preparing for the profession.  Society activities provide support for the U.S. Navy; U.S. Coast Guard; U.S. Marine Corps; U.S. Merchant Marine and U.S. Army.

ASNE is the seventh oldest technical society in the United States.  It was founded in 1888 by a group of naval engineering pioneers, most of them officers of the U.S. Navy's Engineering Corps, who sought a unified approach to their profession in order to make the most of new advances in technology. The purposes of ASNE are:           

  • to advance the knowledge and practice of naval engineering in public and private applications and operations,
  • to enhance the professionalism and well-being of members, and
  • to promote naval engineering as a career field.

For 125 years, the Society’s objectives have been strengthened and preserved to meet the changing needs of a time-honored profession. Today ASNE conducts a variety of technical meetings and symposia, publishes the highly regarded Naval Engineers Journal and a number of other technical proceedings and publications, and fosters professional development and technical information exchange through technical committees, local section activities and cooperative efforts with government organizations and other professional societies.

The Society's annual meeting, ASNE Day, is typically held in February of each year in the Washington, DC, area. The meeting features major addresses by high level industry and government leaders and panel discussions by leading members of the profession.  It also includes presentation and discussion of technical papers on a variety of timely naval engineering topics, presentation of the Society's prestigious annual awards and a large exposition with government and industry exhibits covering the full spectrum of naval engineering technology. ASNE Day is highlighted by the Society’s annual Honors Gala, attended by hundreds of executives and senior managers from both government and industry.

Our website is designed to not only serve our members, but also to support scholars, students and others interested in the varied field of naval engineering.  We welcome your suggestions on ways we can improve your experience. 


 

Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research under grant N00014-17-1-3142 

The BIG Questions

Life is full of questions. Here are some big STEM questions. We also include resources below to facilitate classroom discussions and investigations.


Resources for STEM Discussions

Princeton University has a good page that expands on these key characteristics of educational STEM discussions:

  • Set a relaxed, welcoming tone from the first
  • Be prepared, plan ahead
  • Ask students what they most need or want from the problem solving/discussion session
  • Talk less, listen more
  • Encourage students to listen to one another
  • Facilitate future discussions by assigning students questions to think about for the next time
  • Be enthusiastic

If you want more information, see the Teaching Center's description about Teaching with Discussions. This information from Washington University in St. Louis describes how to plan, execute and evaluate educational discussions. It's another resource that emphasizes how to prepare and gently guide student discussions.

 

Finally, discussions does not mean that you should forgo hands-on science. Discussions can lead to researchable questions and student-led investigations. The National Science Teachers Association has a great article with visuals about how students asked questions on day 1, researched more on day 2, and presented findings on day 3. This article by Marta Stoeckel is a great example of integrating student-generated questions with hands-on research.

Resources for each question

Possible ways to teach with questions:

We set up the student and educator pages so that you can teach the way you prefer. For example,

  • Informal discussions: Allow students to discuss the question in a large group and support the discussion by asking science-based questions and highlighting good consensus ideas. If the group gets stuck, show one of the additional resource videos on the student page.
  • Multi-day investigation: Start with an informal discussion, and then encourage rigorous hypothesis development to end day 1. Day 2 should begin with a design of the investigation. Ensure that the investigation measures the hypothesis and all control variables are identified and addressed. Emphasize that investigations test one independent variable. On day 3, give some time for students to create presentation-worthy artifact (graph, infographic, etc.) of their data and investigation, and then have some groups present to the class.
  • Flipped classes: Assign students the task of using the additional resources to create a hypothesis. Then, start class with students sharing hypotheses in small groups, coming to a testable hypothesis, and then transition into research or investigation (depending on the hypothesis).