Sustainable engineering education in the United States

Allenby, Braden; Murphy, C.F.; Allen, David T.; Davidson, Cliff I.

doi:10.1007/s11625-009-0065-5

Cited by 80 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In engineering, sustainability teaching tends to follow one of three models -integration of sustainability into traditional courses, stand-alone sustainable engineering, and embedding sustainable engineering modules within the framework of existing courses. Challenges in sustainable engineering education include a full curriculum, the engineering educational structure and a focus on the environmental aspects of sustainability, with less emphasis on its social and cultural aspects [37]. Thus, there is an opportunity to improve the learning of engineering students in the social dimension of sustainability [38].…”

Section: Development Of Sustainability Skills In Professional Engineersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meeting the Challenges of Engineering a Sustainable Future

Thorpe¹

2018

GEOMATE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Engineers have a significant role in the sustainable development and management of resources. This responsibility encompasses the three generally accepted dimensions of sustainability -environment, economic and social -and applies to engineering projects throughout their life cycle. Sustainable engineering practice is supported by professional engineering associations, such as Engineers Australia, which includes the promotion of sustainability as a principle of its Code of Ethics. It has also been given impetus by the recent Paris Agreement on climate change. However, while there has been considerable progress in this field, there is much work required to achieve a truly sustainable future. While the industry has a major role in promoting and encouraging sustainable practices in engineering projects, educators also have a significant role in this process, through developing and fostering the knowledge and skills of sustainability in engineers. At the undergraduate level, this task is normally undertaken through courses that teach the principles of sustainable engineering practice. A major challenge for educators, however, is the ongoing development of the knowledge and skills of sustainable engineering taught in such courses. While postgraduate courses can achieve this objective, the majority of practicing engineers are unlikely to be able to undertake the detailed formal study. Meeting this gap between sustainable engineering knowledge and its implementation, therefore, presents challenges to educators. Possible options proposed include an ongoing commitment by government and society to sustainability in engineering projects, ongoing implementation of innovative sustainable engineering practices, and lifelong learning in sustainable engineering practices by professional engineers.

show abstract

Section: Development Of Sustainability Skills In Professional Engineersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meeting the Challenges of Engineering a Sustainable Future

Thorpe¹

2018

GEOMATE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Sustainability informed practice would align with the latter mode, thereby bringing engineers into new, less familiar territories and into contact with other professions and stakeholders, and ultimately more in concert with the needs of society (Mitchell, 2000;Batterham, 2003;Symkowiak, 2003;Chau, 2007;Conlon, 2008;Jennings, 2009;Allenby et al, 2009). In this way the engineer can draw upon much more than just dispassionate objectivity; they can harness the additional store of "intuition, feelings and passion" that only comes thorough making both "physical and emotional connections" with the issue at hand, thereby achieving a degree of "dynamic objectivity" (McIsaac and Morey, 1998).…”

Section: Perceived and Actual Societal Roles And Responsibilities Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical engineering in an unsustainable world: Obligations and opportunities

Byrne

Fitzpatrick

2009

Education for Chemical Engineers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…To develop the survey, we drew from existing knowledge on topics including belief about climate change (Leiserowitz et al, 2012), engineering course content and standards (ABET, 2013;Allenby et al, 2009), sustainability (Davidson et al, 2007Huntzinger et al, 2007;Mihelcic et al, 2006), critical engineering agency (Godwin et al, 2013;McNeill & Vaughn, 2010), and career choice (Hazari et al, 2010;Kaminsky et al, 2012;Shealy et al, 2015). The survey was model on prior national surveys such as Sustainability and Gender in Engineering (Klotz et al, 2010), the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication (Leiserowitz et al, 2012;Leiserowitz et al, 2010) and the climate literacy survey from Clarkson University (DeWaters et al, 2012).…”

Section: Survey Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Survey Development to Measure the Gap Between Student Awareness, Literacy, and Action to Address Human-caused Climate Change

Shealy¹,

Godwin²,

Gardner³

2017 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tripp Shealy is an assistant professor in the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and principal faculty member in the Myers-Lawson School of Construction at Virginia Tech. He received his doctorate from Clemson University. His research is broadly focuses on judgment and decision making for sustainable infrastructure. This includes education for sustainability, specifically, how student understanding and attitude towards climate change effects their motivations and agency to solve complex global problems for a sustainability in their career. The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals state climate change could irreversibly affect future generations and is one of the most urgent issues facing society. To date, most education research on climate change examines middle and high school students' knowledge without considering the link between understanding and interest to address such issues in their career. In research on students' attitudes about sustainability, we found that half of first-year college engineering students, in our nationally representative sample of all college students at 4-year institutions (n = 937), do not believe climate change is caused by humans. This lack of belief in human-caused climate change is a significant problem in engineering education because our results also indicate engineering students who do not believe in human caused climate change are less likely to want to address climate change in their careers. This dismal finding highlights a need for improving student understanding and attitudes toward climate change in order to produce engineers prepared and interested in solving complex global problems in sustainability. To advance understanding about students' understanding of climate change and their agency to address the issue, we developed the CLIMATE survey to measure senior undergraduate engineering students' Climate change literacy, engineering identity, career motivations, and agency through engineering. The survey was designed for students in their final senior design, or capstone course, just prior to entering the workforce. We developed the survey using prior national surveys and newly written questions categorized into six sections: (1) career goals and motivation, (2) college experiences, (3) agency, (4) climate literacy, (5) people and the planet, and (6) demographic information. We conducted focus groups with students to establish face and content validity of the survey. We collected pilot data with 200 engineering students in upper-level engineering courses to provide validity evidence for the use of these survey items to measure students and track changes across the undergraduate curriculum for our future work. In this paper, we narrate the development of the survey supported by literature and outline the next step for further validation and distribution on a national scale. Our intent is to receive feedback and input about the questions being asked and the CLIMATE instrument. Our objective is to share the nationally representa...

show abstract

Sustainable engineering education in the United States

Cited by 80 publications

References 3 publications

Meeting the Challenges of Engineering a Sustainable Future

Meeting the Challenges of Engineering a Sustainable Future

Chemical engineering in an unsustainable world: Obligations and opportunities

Survey Development to Measure the Gap Between Student Awareness, Literacy, and Action to Address Human-caused Climate Change

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About