Evolution Of A Sustainability Focused First Year Environmental Engineering Course

Abstract

Boulder. The program offers an accredited B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering using courses primarily from civil, chemical, and mechanical engineering. Angela is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering.

Mixed Method Approach to Evaluate Sustainability Thinking Among the Next Generation of Civil and Environmental Engineers

“…The responses we received from the post-course qualitative questions supported the quantitative results we observed from comparing the pre/post course surveys, which was the students' knowledge increased, even after controlling for differences due to major, housing status, and year of study. Environmental engineering majors had greater overall knowledge and understanding of environmental problems than civil engineering majors, which was aligned with Bielefeldt's findings [17], [25]. This could be that the environmental engineering students took ownership of the information, whereas civil engineering students tend to question why they are required to take the course.…”

“…Although the module was deemed successful, the authors stressed that clearer messaging about the role of sustainability was needed. In 2010, Bielefeldt documented different methods, such as life-cycle analysis, to introduce sustainability to first year engineering students [25]. There was compelling evidence that the inclusion of a sustainability module encouraged students to consider sustainability in other course assignments, even though they were not explicitly directed to do so [23].…”

Engineering and Sustainability: The Challenge of Integrating Social and Ethical Issues into a Technical Course

“…The latter group of studies have covered, for example, the integration of macroethical issues through case studies 29 , role play 30 , design work 31 , creative writing 32 , and more traditional modes of content delivery such as readings, lectures, and discussion 33 . More specifically, Bielefeldt has shown that integrating sustainability and ethics modules into first year engineering courses can increase student identification with these concepts, including the social dimensions of sustainability 34,35 . Nonetheless, while understanding stakeholder perspectives and socio-technical system complexity is often a component of these activities and courses 36 , there is very little fine-grained analysis of how stakeholder value mapping exercises can influence engineering student's appreciation of stakeholder diversity and socio-technical system complexity.…”