The Wicked Problems in Sustainable Engineering (WPSE) Initiative: Pilot Results of a Cross-Institutional Project-Based Course Offering

Justin L. Hess; Sarah Aileen Brownell; Alexander T. Dale

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Conference: 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Publication Date: June 15, 2014
Start Date: June 15, 2014
End Date: June 18, 2014
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Sustainability
Tagged Divisions: Multidisciplinary Engineering and Liberal Education/Engineering & Society
Page Count: 23
Page Numbers: 24.1257.1 - 24.1257.23
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--23190
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/23190
Download Count: 622

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Paper Authors

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Justin L. Hess Purdue University, West Lafayette orcid.org/0000-0002-1210-9535

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Justin Hess is a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. He received his B.S. in civil engineering in 2011 with a minor in philosophy from Purdue University, where he hopes to complete his M.S. in civil engineering in December 2014. His research focuses on understanding engineers’ core values, dispositions, and worldviews. His dissertation focuses on conceptualizations, the importance of empathy, and methods to teach it to engineering students. He is currently the education director for Engineers for a Sustainable World and an assistant editor of Engineering Studies.

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Sarah Aileen Brownell Rochester Institute of Technology

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Sarah Brownell is a lecturer in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering's design, development, and manufacturing department. Her research interests center around development of products for developing countries, specifically sanitation design for Haiti.

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Alexander T. Dale Engineers for a Sustainable World orcid.org/0000-0002-8899-6660

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Alex is the executive director of Engineers for a Sustainable World and has been part of ESW at the national level since 2009. He has driven efforts to improve ESW's educational offerings through national course initiatives as well as through leadership and sustainability skills webinars.

Alex finished his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh in civil and environmental engineering in 2013 and was funded through an NSF IGERT fellowship. His research focused on the regional environmental impacts and feasibility of energy- and water-supply scenarios, and combined aspects of life-cycle assessment, policy implications, and the water-energy nexus. He has worked on the Marcellus Shale and spent 4 months in Rio de Janeiro on a research rotation.

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Abstract

The Wicked Problems in Sustainable Engineering (WPSE) Initiative: Exploring theEfficacy of a CrossInstitutional ProjectBased Course OfferingWicked problems are characterized as problems without a conclusive formulation, withnumerous stakeholders’ values determining the quality of any given response. They aresymptoms of each other, essentially unique, and are unlikely to be definitively ‘solved’. Manytechnical sustainability problems show elements of wickedness (e.g. climate change,infrastructure, cities).Exposure to wicked problems during a student’s undergraduate educationis critical to preparing students for careers and global citizenship, but is also challenging. Inresponse to this, we have developed the Wicked Problems in Sustainable Engineering (WPSE)Initiative to provide a centralized connection point for sharing resources and to develop anasynchronous community for schools interested in exposing their students to wicked problems. In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the need for and feasibility of this crosscampusinitiative. We present the program design along with the results of a pilot year of the WPSEcourse offerings during the fall of 2013. The inaugural topic, which will change yearly, hadstudents examine the roots of air pollution. Students were asked to look at varied tactics forresolving wicked problems such as behavioral change and indirect approaches rather thanendofpipe methods. One course focused on social entrepreneurial and bottomup approacheswhile the second course focused on methods of defining, analyzing, and resolving the problemwith focused consideration of different stakeholder perspectives. Both courses had studentteams design responses to the wicked problem as a central project. Results of pre and postsurveys of student attitudes towards sustainability and professional practice, as well as criticaldesign reviews spaced throughout the semester, are presented to demonstrate the potentialbenefits of linked projectbased courses. As WPSE prepares for its second year with a larger number of colleges and universities,we discuss the role of nonprofit organizations as partners in enabling the teaching of realworldand complex topics, blending digital communities and physical classes and project teams toobtain the best aspects of both.

Citation
Format

Hess, J. L., & Brownell, S. A., & Dale, A. T. (2014, June), The Wicked Problems in Sustainable Engineering (WPSE) Initiative: Pilot Results of a Cross-Institutional Project-Based Course Offering Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--23190

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The Wicked Problems in Sustainable Engineering (WPSE) Initiative: Exploring theEfficacy of a CrossInstitutional ProjectBased Course OfferingWicked problems are characterized as problems without a conclusive formulation, withnumerous stakeholders’ values determining the quality of any given response. They aresymptoms of each other, essentially unique, and are unlikely to be definitively ‘solved’. Manytechnical sustainability problems show elements of wickedness (e.g. climate change,infrastructure, cities).Exposure to wicked problems during a student’s undergraduate educationis critical to preparing students for careers and global citizenship, but is also challenging. Inresponse to this, we have developed the Wicked Problems in Sustainable Engineering (WPSE)Initiative to provide a centralized connection point for sharing resources and to develop anasynchronous community for schools interested in exposing their students to wicked problems.         In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the need for and feasibility of this crosscampusinitiative. We present the program design along with the results of a pilot year of the WPSEcourse offerings during the fall of 2013. The inaugural topic, which will change yearly, hadstudents examine the roots of air pollution. Students were asked to look at varied tactics forresolving wicked problems such as behavioral change and indirect approaches rather thanendofpipe methods. One course focused on social entrepreneurial and bottomup approacheswhile the second course focused on methods of defining, analyzing, and resolving the problemwith focused consideration of different stakeholder perspectives. Both courses had studentteams design responses to the wicked problem as a central project. Results of pre and postsurveys of student attitudes towards sustainability and professional practice, as well as criticaldesign reviews spaced throughout the semester, are presented to demonstrate the potentialbenefits of linked projectbased courses.         As WPSE prepares for its second year with a larger number of colleges and universities,we discuss the role of nonprofit organizations as partners in enabling the teaching of realworldand complex topics, blending digital communities and physical classes and project teams toobtain the best aspects of both.
AU  - Justin L. Hess
AU  - Sarah Aileen Brownell
AU  - Alexander T. Dale
CY  - Indianapolis, Indiana
DA  - 2014/06/15
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - The Wicked Problems in Sustainable Engineering (WPSE) Initiative: Pilot Results of a Cross-Institutional Project-Based Course Offering
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/23190
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--23190
ER  -