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Sustainability Inclusion Efforts in Three Unique First-Year Engineering Courses

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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

First-Year Programs Division Technical Session 11: Program Descriptions and Learning Analytics

Page Count

29

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41706

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41706

Download Count

357

Paper Authors

biography

Joan Tisdale University of Colorado Boulder

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Joan Tisdale's research focus is in engineering education and specifically sustainability across engineering curricula. She has a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering rom Auburn University, a masters degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and is currently working on her PhD in civil engineering, with a certificate in global engineering, at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has also worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as a process engineer.

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Angela Bielefeldt University of Colorado Boulder

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Angela Bielefeldt, Ph.D., P.E., is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE). She is also the Director for the Engineering Plus program, which is in the process of being renamed to Integrated Design Engineering. Bielefeldt also serves as the co-director for the Engineering Education and AI-Augmented Learning Integrated Research Theme (IRT) at CU. She has been a faculty member at CU since 1996, serving in various roles including Faculty Director of the Sustainable By Design Residential Academic Program (2014-2017), Director of the Environmental Engineering program (2006-2010), and ABET Assessment Coordinator for the CEAE Department (2008-2018). Bielefeldt is active in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), serving on the Civil Engineering Program Criteria Task Committee (2019-2022) and the Body of Knowledge 3 Task Committee (2016-2018). She is the Senior Editor for the International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering (IJSLE) and a Deputy Editor for the ASCE Journal of Civil Engineering Education. Her research focuses on engineering education, including ethics, social responsibility, sustainable engineering, and community engagement. Bielefeldt is also a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

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Laura MacDonald University of Colorado Boulder

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Managing Director, Mortenson Center in Global Engineering

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Carlo Salvinelli University of Colorado Boulder

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Dr. Salvinelli is a Teaching Assistant Professor at the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder where he teaches courses on humanitarian response and disaster management, international development project management, and field methods for development engineers. He has a BS in Industrial Engineering and a MS in Engineering Management from the University of Brescia, Italy, and a PhD in Geological Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology where he conducted research focused on household water treatment systems for underserved communities. Dr. Salvinelli spent six years working as a practitioner for international NGOs, especially in Central America, where he designed and implemented international development projects, coordinated emergency response efforts, and facilitated international policy dialogues. The projects he managed addressed key development challenges including rural livelihood, water and sanitation access, rural electrification, disaster risk reduction, and natural resources management. His research interests include monitoring and impact evaluation of water service delivery solutions, the development of tools for disaster risk reduction and disaster management, and the coherence between humanitarian and development efforts in response to forced displacement related crises.

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Abstract

Throughout the world, various institutions and programs are working to integrate sustainability into engineering education. University engineering programs can be a pivotal place for future engineers to gain understanding of sustainability and its importance, including in first-year courses. At the University of XX, three courses for first year engineering students are uniquely integrating sustainability. The courses selected for this study are 1) First-Year Engineering Projects, 2) Introduction to Civil Engineering, and 3) Introduction to Global Engineering. First-Year Engineering Projects provides students with the opportunity to use an iterative process to solve real engineering design problems. Introduction to Civil Engineering surveys the discipline and incorporates learning goals on ethics and sustainability. Introduction to Global Engineering addresses the engineer’s role in identifying and acting on global poverty challenges. In this paper, we describe the explicit and implicit learning goals with respect to sustainability in these courses. We then map the sustainability content to the three pillars of sustainability, the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Levels. At the end of the Fall 2021 semester, students in each of the three courses were asked to complete a survey that used 7-pt Likert-type items to evaluate student interest and motivation toward sustainability and 11-point rating items on confidence/self-efficacy. Student perception on sustainability was found to differ by: course, discipline, gender, major, student previous knowledge, and student general interests. Within each course, impactful factors include the learning objectives, quantity of sustainability inclusion and method of delivery. A given course is not the sole determining factor of students’ awareness of sustainability, but it can have an effect. Sustainability can look different across engineering disciplines, and each area and method of incorporating sustainability has its own place, value, and impact.

Tisdale, J., & Bielefeldt, A., & MacDonald, L., & Salvinelli, C. (2022, August), Sustainability Inclusion Efforts in Three Unique First-Year Engineering Courses Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41706

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