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Engaging Students With Course Project Development: An Active Learning Element For A System Dynamics Course

System Dynamics is a senior level course for the Mechanical Engineering Concentration offered in a General Engineering program at YYY University. Course objectives include the application of mathematical methods for system dynamics analysis and design, as well as that of simulation tools (e.g., MATLAB and SIMULINK). A comprehensive course project with a real-world application context has been planned to provide students with the opportunity to apply all the mathematical and computational skills they learned through the semester. After being exposed with the basics of the theory and tools, students were asked to research and propose their own course projects. This paper introduces this active learning experience from its planning, to implementation and assessment. Lessons and improvement opportunities are also presented.