The aerospace engineering pillars of structures, gas dynamics, and dynamics and control have rested long term on a firm foundation of calculus-based physics. Today’s aerospace engineer relies more on the computational device than the pencil and paper to innovate in theory and in practice. Educators and practitioners struggle with questions in how to improve computing knowledge and skills in the aerospace curriculum. Whereas most agree it would be unwise to compromise most content currently in place, opinions differ on which computing concepts students need to know. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of computing for aerospace and encourage critical thought about options for its inclusion into the required undergraduate curriculum. To do this, computer science is defined and common misconceptions are discussed. A review of computing content in aerospace curricula is presented. A pedagogical strategy that capitalizs on analogs between discrete and continuous-valued physical processes is proposed, including examples of how computational thinking can be meaningfully infused without loss of content in traditional aerospace courses. The paper concludes with related efforts to introduce computational thinking in kindergarten through 12th grades and higher education along with a discussion of insights computer science offers aerospace by revisiting questions from the introduction.
Education in the Crosscutting Sciences of Aerospace and Computing
Journal of Aerospace Information Systems ; 11 , 10 ; 726-737
2014-08-14
12 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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