Using A Green Engineering Building Design Contest To Promote Sustainable Engineering

Students and faculty rarely have the opportunity to work together on the design of a major facility that both are going to use. When funds were appropriated to design and build an engineering annex at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), faculty on the Sustainable Engineering Committee saw a golden opportunity. Committee members decided to propose the idea of a Green Engineering Building Design Contest (GEBDC) to the faculty and the administration and, once approved, to the students. Faculty and the administration have enthusiastically endorsed the undertaking largely because it will serve as a great learning experience for all. As a product, the faculty, students and architect are designing a model building that will illustrate UTEP’s leadership in engineering design and sustainability concepts for the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez region. The objective of this paper is to describe and analyze the GEBDC process and its impact on the sustainable engineering initiative and engineering education at UTEP. The College of Engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) has developed a program for the teaching and learning of sustainable engineering concepts in each and every engineering program. The departments impacted are Civil, Computer Science, Electrical, Materials & Metallurgy, and Mechanical & Industrial Engineering. The program is the result of self-assessment at UTEP and has the support of a National Science Foundation initiative for Model Institutions of Excellence. The program is introducing sustainable engineering concepts in the teaching of specific existing courses and developing a sustainable engineering certification program. This paper will review progress on the sustainable engineering program and present several of the exciting concepts being proposed for inclusion in the engineering annex.