Engineering and Data Science for Environmental Justice (Resource Exchange)

Jennifer Taylor; Amy Wilson-Lopez; Ivonne Santiago

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: PCEE Session 4: Resource / Curriculum Exchange
Page Count: 4
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41121
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41121
Download Count: 308

Paper Authors

biography

Jennifer Taylor University of Colorado Boulder

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Jennifer Taylor is an Assistant Director with the Integrated Teaching and Learning (ITL) Program of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder. She directs the ITL Pre-College Engineering Education Program whose mission aims to broaden participation and build interest in engineering through hands-on learning experiences for K-12 students, especially underrepresented and underserved youth. Jennifer develops engineering education curricula that focus on integrating the engineering design process and design thinking into STEM education and works with K-12 educators to increase teacher capacity in classroom engineering education. She also teaches a first-year Engineering Projects course at CU.

Prior to pursuing a career in higher education, Jennifer taught middle school science for 15 years and she received a Teacher of the Year community award and guided her students to numerous state and national sustainable project awards, including the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge. After transitioning from the classroom, she joined the CU Cooperative Institute for Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Education & Outreach Program as a Curriculum Development and Program Manager where she created K-12 climate science and environmental education curricula and programs and was a team member that received a CO-LABS Governor’s Award for High Impact Research in Atmospheric Science.

Jennifer is a first-generation college student and holds a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Illinois-Chicago and an MSc in Environmental Biology from the University of Liverpool. In her downtime, Jennifer enjoys spending time with her family in neighboring Rocky Mountain National Park and the challenge of running ultra-marathons.

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Amy Wilson-Lopez Utah State University - Engineering Education

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Amy Wilson-Lopez is an associate professor at Utah State University.

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Ivonne Santiago University of Texas at El Paso

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Abstract

Engineering and Data Science for Environmental Justice (Resource Exchange)

This resource exchange will explore the intersection of engineering education, spatial data, and environmental justice. Environmental injustices have disproportionately adversely impacted the health of Communities of Color for generations. For example, race is the most powerful variable in predicting where waste facilities are sited (United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 1987), and pollutants “disproportionately and systematically” harm Black and Latinx people who live by highways, which were historically purposefully placed through low-income communities (Tessum et al., 2021). Integrated engineering and data science practices are powerful tools for identifying and redressing environmental injustices, but few curricula have been published that highlight how to teach these topics in high schools. In this curriculum exchange paper, we will share an instructional approach for teaching environmental justice. This instructional approach was implemented in high school engineering classrooms (comprised mostly of 9th and 10th graders) as part of a trimester-long engineering design course. Specifically, this resource exchange will highlight activities that used four case studies (e.g., location and effects of interstate routes) to introduce students to various environmental injustices. It will illustrate how students can use story maps, such as those created with ArcGIS, to highlight correlations between different variables (e.g., location, pollutants, income, race/ethnicity) in compelling, creative, and user-friendly ways. After students are introduced to data science practices through ArcGIS StoryMaps (using real-time data such as those from airnow.gov), students then have opportunities to design solutions that redress the injustices. Specifically, these curricula will focus on how student engineering teams designed, built, and tested model electric vehicles (EV) to understand how EVs significantly reduce highway emissions. Learning goals included (a) analyzing datasets and communicating the findings from the analysis and (b) applying engineering design processes to address real social issues. Materials include publicly free and available software and datasets, as well as physical, low-cost materials that are found in many engineering classrooms. The full paper will outline how teachers can implement procedures associated with (a) using datasets to highlight environmental injustices; and (b) using engineering to advance environmental justice.

Citation
Format

Taylor, J., & Wilson-Lopez, A., & Santiago, I. (2022, August), Engineering and Data Science for Environmental Justice (Resource Exchange) Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41121

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Engineering and Data Science for Environmental Justice (Resource Exchange)

This resource exchange will explore the intersection of engineering education, spatial data, and environmental justice. Environmental injustices have disproportionately adversely impacted the health of Communities of Color for generations. For example, race is the most powerful variable in predicting where waste facilities are sited (United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 1987), and pollutants “disproportionately and systematically” harm Black and Latinx people who live by highways, which were historically purposefully placed through low-income communities (Tessum et al., 2021). Integrated engineering and data science practices are powerful tools for identifying and redressing environmental injustices, but few curricula have been published that highlight how to teach these topics in high schools. In this curriculum exchange paper, we will share an instructional approach for teaching environmental justice. This instructional approach was implemented in high school engineering classrooms (comprised mostly of 9th and 10th graders) as part of a trimester-long engineering design course. Specifically, this resource exchange will highlight activities that used four case studies (e.g., location and effects of interstate routes) to introduce students to various environmental injustices. It will illustrate how students can use story maps, such as those created with ArcGIS, to highlight correlations between different variables (e.g., location, pollutants, income, race/ethnicity) in compelling, creative, and user-friendly ways. After students are introduced to data science practices through ArcGIS StoryMaps (using real-time data such as those from airnow.gov), students then have opportunities to design solutions that redress the injustices. Specifically, these curricula will focus on how student engineering teams designed, built, and tested model electric vehicles (EV) to understand how EVs significantly reduce highway emissions. Learning goals included (a) analyzing datasets and communicating the findings from the analysis and (b) applying engineering design processes to address real social issues. Materials include publicly free and available software and datasets, as well as physical, low-cost materials that are found in many engineering classrooms. The full paper will outline how teachers can implement procedures associated with (a) using datasets to highlight environmental injustices; and (b) using engineering to advance environmental justice.

AU  - Jennifer Taylor
AU  - Amy Wilson-Lopez
AU  - Ivonne Santiago
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Engineering and Data Science for Environmental Justice (Resource Exchange)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41121
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41121
ER  -