Asee peer logo

Integrating Sustainability Grand Challenges and Experiential Learning into Engineering Curricula: Years 1 through 3

Download Paper |

Conference

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

New Orleans, Louisiana

Publication Date

June 26, 2016

Start Date

June 26, 2016

End Date

June 29, 2016

ISBN

978-0-692-68565-5

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session I

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/p.25412

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/25412

Download Count

614

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Claire L. A. Dancz Clemson University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-4359-8041

visit author page

Claire L. A. Dancz is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Civil Engineering and online active experiential learning and assessment with Clemson Online at Clemson University. Dr. Dancz received her B.S. in Environmental Microbiology and Biology from Michigan State University, her M.S. in Civil Engineering from University of Pittsburgh, and Ph.D. in Sustainable Engineering from Arizona State University. Her areas of research include modular, course, and blended models for integrating sustainability into civil engineering programs, entrepreneurship for engineering grand challenges and service-learning, and assessment in engineering education. Dr. Dancz has developed and evaluated open-access online active and experiential learning activities that immerse engineering students in sustainability and enable students to exercise their voice in solving grand challenges. As a Kolbe® certified consultant, Dr. Dancz utilizes conation and team science to recruit and retain students with diverse problem-solving instincts to improve communication, leadership, and impact the diversity of engineers as global change-makers.

visit author page

author page

Kevin J. Ketchman

author page

Rebekah Burke P.E. Arizona State University

biography

Roksana Mahmud Clemson University

visit author page

PhD student in Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, Clemson University;
MS in Chemical Engineering, Oklahoma State University;
BS in Chemical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

visit author page

biography

Melissa M. Bilec University of Pittsburgh

visit author page

Dr. Bilec is an associate professor in the Swanson School of Engineering’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Dr. Bilec’s research program focuses on the built environment, life cycle assessment, sustainable healthcare, and energy impacts. She is interested in improving system-level environmental performance of buildings, while developing a deeper understanding of indoor environmental quality, occupant impacts, and energy use. She is the Principal Investigator of a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research project, NSF EFRI-Barriers, Understanding, Integration – Life cycle Development (BUILD). As the associate director of education outreach in the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, Pitt’s center for green design, she translates research to community outreach programs and develops sustainable engineering programs for K-12 education.

visit author page

biography

Kristen Parrish Arizona State University

visit author page

Kristen Parrish is an Assistant Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University (ASU). Kristen’s work focuses on integrating energy efficiency measures into building design, construction, and operations processes. Specifically, she is interested in novel design processes that financially and technically facilitate energy-efficient buildings. Her work also explores how principles of lean manufacturing facilitate energy-efficiency in the commercial building industry. Another research interest of Kristen’s is engineering education, where she explores how project- and experience-based learning foster better understanding of engineering and management principles. Prior to joining ASU, Kristen was at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) as a Postdoctoral Fellow (2009-11) and then a Scientific Engineering Associate (2011-2012) in the Building Technologies and Urban Systems Department. She worked in the Commercial Buildings group, developing energy efficiency programs and researching technical and non-technical barriers to energy efficiency in the buildings industry. She has a background in collaborative design and integrated project delivery. She holds a BS and MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Civil Engineering Systems from University of California Berkeley.

visit author page

biography

Elizabeth A Adams Chandler Gilbert Community College

visit author page

Residential Engineering Faculty at Chandler-Gilbert Community College.

visit author page

author page

brad allenby Arizona State University

biography

Amy E. Landis Clemson University

visit author page

Dr. Landis joined Clemson in June 2015 as the Thomas F. Hash ’69 Endowed Chair in Sustainable Development. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at Arizona State University in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. She began her career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, after having obtained her PhD in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Chicago under the supervision of Dr. Thomas L. Theis. She has developed a research program in sustainable engineering of bioproducts. Her research ranges from design of systems based on industrial ecology and byproduct synergies, life cycle and sustainability assessments of biopolymers and biofuels, and design and analysis of sustainable solutions for healthcare. Since 2007, she has lead seven federal research projects and collaborated on many more, totaling over $7M in research, with over $12M in collaborative research. At ASU, Dr. Landis continues to grow her research activities and collaborations to include multidisciplinary approaches to sustainable systems with over 60 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Landis is dedicated to sustainability engineering education and outreach; she works with local high schools, after school programs, local nonprofit organizations, and museums to integrate sustainability and engineering into K-12 and undergraduate curricula.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Today’s complex global problems necessitate engineering solutions that not only consider sustainability but solutions founded on principles of sustainability to ensure the needs of today can be met tomorrow. Engineering educators face a difficult task of training students with both technical competencies and sustainability consciousness to tackle 21st century challenges. Two successful models for implementing sustainability tenets into engineering curricula have emerged in practice and in literature: course-based and modular-based models. Engineering programs implement the course-based model by establishing one to two distinct courses designed to address sustainability grand challenges in depth. Conversely, engineering programs implement the modular-based model by integrating sustainability grand challenges throughout a host of existing courses and weave student exposure throughout the curriculum via ready-made modules. The goal of this TUES 2 project is to evaluate the two models for implementing sustainability and to provide succinct recommendations and lessons learned for engineering programs tasked with integrating sustainability into their curricula. We are implementing and monitoring these two strategies in seven different engineering programs, including research universities: Arizona State University (located in Tempe, Arizona), University of Pittsburgh (located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), and community colleges: Mesa Community College (located in Mesa, Arizona), Laney College (located in Oakland, California), and Community College of Allegheny County (located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).

This paper summarizes the progress and accomplishments during years one through three of this four-year collaborative TUES 2 research project. We review the development of stand-alone sustainability courses and sustainability themed modules that employ experiential and active learning developed in Year 1. In addition, we review Year 2 dialogues and critical collaborations that led to the establishment of a faculty network to explore both the stand-alone course and modular methods. We also present results from ongoing research to assess student-learning outcomes related to sustainability in Year 3.

Dancz, C. L. A., & Ketchman, K. J., & Burke, R., & Mahmud, R., & Bilec, M. M., & Parrish, K., & Adams, E. A., & allenby, B., & Landis, A. E. (2016, June), Integrating Sustainability Grand Challenges and Experiential Learning into Engineering Curricula: Years 1 through 3 Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.25412

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2016 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015