FARR Mini-Research Project Promotes Ethical Use of AI Tools Among Engineering Students

Written by Jack Imel, University of Alaska Southeast Intern at SDSC

Workshop at Howard University helps students understand and effectively engage with AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Claude.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) FARR (FAIR in ML, AI Readiness and Reproducibility) Research Coordination Network recently provided funding to Howard University for a workshop on the ethical use of AI tools for civil engineering students. Assistant Professor Sanjib Sharma led the workshop alongside Yogesh Bhattarai, a civil engineering graduate student. 

“The primary objective of our project was to train students on how to use generative AI tools, prepare open-source educational materials, and disseminate this learning experience to the wider Earth science community,” said Sharma. 

During the workshop, students were tasked to explain the water balance equation and its components — a concept from hydrology. To do this, they were first instructed to use traditional search engines. The students browsed lists of results, selected relevant links and skimmed through articles, research papers and textbooks before manually compiling and synthesizing relevant information. Little more than 35% of the students were able to complete the task in a timely manner. 

Next, the presenters introduced large language models (LLMs), explaining their capabilities, use cases and ethical considerations — focusing on the FAIR principles. Then, students were instructed to use an AI model to complete the same task, instantly receiving complete, structured responses in plain language. This time, more than 60% of students completed the task and they did so approximately 20% faster.  

“We are grateful to the NSF for funding our project as it allowed us to help students better understand both the challenges and opportunities presented by the rapid evolution of generative AI tools,” Sharma said. 

Generative AI tool