Environmentally Smart Engineering Education: A Brief on a Paradigm in Progress

Abstract

Sustainable development has become the dominant economic, environmental, and social issue of the 21st century, yet its broad infusion within engineering education programs remains a challenge. This paper discusses the importance of environment and sustainable development considerations, the need for their widespread inclusion in engineering education, and the impediments to change. The roles of ABET and others in the evolution of these considerations in engineering education are presented; however, it is through the ABET engineering criteria that broad adoption of environment related considerations in engineering education will most likely occur. An effort to achieve this aim is described.

Integrating project-based learning throughout the undergraduate engineering curriculum

“…It requires seeing patterns of change rather than static conditions and many have identified the need for taking this type of approach when developing design solutions [12,13]. A systems approach to design involves learning that complex systems cannot be optimized by simply optimizing individual sub-systems; it requires an in-depth knowledge of how the sub-systems interact with each other [14].…”

The Challenge to Change: On Realizing the New Paradigm for Engineering Education

“…This paper is an updated version of the second part of a trilogy on engineering education reform [11]. In contrast to the first paper [12] that focused on environmentally smart engineering education, this paper addresses change related to the totality of attributes that define the new paradigm. The trilogy also includes a paper titled "Engineering Education Reform: A Path Forward."…”

Communicating sustainability: Sustainability and communication in the engineering, science, and technical communication classrooms

“…In Frank Splitt's words, "a fundamental change in engineering education [is] required to help the next generation of engineers learn to design for sustainable development and long-range competitiveness" [3]. Nor are the reasons for this change limited to practical expediency for students' career success: as Hyde and Karney put it, "Environmental education for engineering students is intended to make them better environmental citizens."…”