Conference Session

Integrating Sustainability Across the Curriculum

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jennifer Mueller PE P.E., Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Corey M. Taylor, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Patricia Brackin, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Richard A. House, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Kathleen Toohey, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Michael S. DeVasher, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Rebecca Booth DeVasher Ph.D., Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Mark H. Minster, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

, unspecializedversions of the same required courses. Several expressed a sense that the sustainability focusdetracted from the general learning objectives of the course—i.e. that they might have receivedmore substantive writing instruction in sections of RH131 that weren’t also teachingsustainability concepts. These themes have emerged before: sustainability has been introducedinto the RHIT curriculum as the organizing framework for projects in other required courses—particularly an upper-division course in technical communication—and students have oftenperceived a tension between the emphasis on sustainability and other course content and learningobjectives. On this point, some HERE students resembled their non-cohort peers more closelythan we’d anticipated

Conference Session

Hands-on Laboratory and Design Experiences in Environmental Engineering

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sudarshan T. Kurwadkar, Tarleton State University; Daniel K. Marble, Tarleton State University

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

environmentalengineering graduates by preparing students for industry and graduate school and by enablingthem to utilize their class room understanding to solve real world problems. The researchexperience in our undergraduate environmental engineering program offers the students aninvaluable opportunity to work on sophisticated analytical instruments, hands-on experimentaldesign, data analysis and interpretation, and also helps them hone their technical writing skills tomeet the demands of graduate school and future employers. Furthermore, the addition of aresearch experience to a core environmental engineering curriculum provides an excellent meansof not only teaching, but also assessing a large number of environmental engineering criteriaoutlined by the

Conference Session

Interdisciplinary Experiences and Assessment in Environmental Engineering

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Angela R. Bielefeldt, University of Colorado, Boulder

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

worked on adifferent project, and in many cases the teams were multi-disciplinary. This approach has thebenefit of encouraging students to be more diligent in their presentation, because of the audienceof peers, faculty from across campus, and industry sponsors who may be hiring graduates.A different design competition model is to promote internal-competitions among students withina single course. At the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), the Civil Engineering capstonecourse has always used only one or two projects and therefore multiple teams all work on thesame project. This engenders a degree of competition among teams, but competition was notdirectly encouraged until 2009. In that year the course was re-designed with a local

Conference Session

Hands-on Laboratory and Design Experiences in Environmental Engineering

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Ross Pfluger P.E., U.S. Military Academy; David-Michael P. Roux, U.S. Army; Michael A. Butkus, U.S. Military Academy

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

introductory environmental engineering courses14 and in environmentalsampling and analysis laboratory courses.17 The most common measurements appear to beparticulate matter (PM), CO, CO2, and aerosols (Table 1). One air pollution project at theUniversity of Utah examined the outdoor concentrations of PM and the students’ work resultedin peer-reviewed publication.22An example of a previously published IAP project was described by Eschenbach and Cashman(2004), who reported on students’ use of CO2 meters to determine the ventilation rate of a spaceof their choosing. The instructor provided a website and associated readings that explain the useof the CO2 meters, the proper data collection methods, as well as describe the use of regressionto determine the

Conference Session

Hands-on Laboratory and Design Experiences in Environmental Engineering

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Radian G. Belu, Drexel University; Irina Nicoleta Ciobanescu Husanu, Drexel University; Dunia Tania Periverzov, Drexel University (Tech.)

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

develops thestudents’ lifelong learning skills, self-evaluations, self-discovery, and peer instruction in thedesign’s creation, critique, and justification. Students learn to understand and make use of themanufacturer data sheets, application notes, and technical manuals when developing their designprojects. The experience, which would be difficult to complete individually, gives the students asense of satisfaction and the accomplishment that is often lacking in many engineering courses,using traditional teaching approaches. Furthermore, the design experience motivates studentlearning and develops skills required in industry. This paper discusses the development of astudent project involving a number of senior undergraduate students at our

Conference Session

Hands-on Laboratory and Design Experiences in Environmental Engineering

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sandeep Sathyamoorthy, Tufts University; Linda Jarvin, Paris College of Art; Michael Hollis, U.S. Air Force Academy; John Anthony Christ, U.S. Air Force Academy; C. Andrew Ramsburg, Tufts University

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

well established student-centered approach which promotesapplication-based learning, enhances problem solving skills and fosters peer learning. This paperdescribes implementation of a PBL lab within a junior-level course on environmentalengineering processes. The PBL exercise was an open-ended, two-hour lab, where student teamsdesigned, built and tested a prototype water treatment system to achieve stated water qualitycriteria (UV transmittance and turbidity). Each team was given a scope of work that outlined theproblem, objectives, design criteria, available materials, constraints, effluent quality testingprotocol (using a synthetic influent) and evaluation criteria. Students were given no priorinformation about the lab, and the PBL lab was