Business students appreciate working on classroom projects that are pleasurable and also prepare them for future careers. Promoting competition among project teams is often used as a method to motivate students. We have developed the “Humanitarian Logistics Project (HLP)” to teach undergraduate students the logistical implications of unsolicited material donations in disaster relief. To encourage competition, students are organized into teams of three and tasked with designing humanitarian public service announcements (PSAs) that improve the understanding of humanitarian issues in the general public. These announcements are then submitted to the national PSAid (Public Service Announcements for International Disasters) contest for American college students. This exercise is rigorous because it requires students to collect logistical data and use it to communicate the smart compassion idea to the public in a creative fashion. At the end of the semester, not only do they learn some topics in humanitarian logistics by competing with other college students nation-wide but also make a socially responsible contribution to the public. Analysis of the test results shows that students’ learning outcomes of the HLP is significantly above other supply chain topics covered throughout the semester in class and student satisfaction with the HLP is quite high.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/koray_ozpolat/10/