Engineering Design For Sustainability: A Course For Majors And Non Majors

As part of a one-semester international experience for undergraduate students, a lowerdivision course in engineering design for sustainability was offered. The course participants consisted of majors in engineering, architecture, political science, and economics from numerous universities. This survey course, beyond providing a basic introduction to sustainable development concepts, exposed the students to the challenges of sustainable development from an engineering design perspective. The course objectives were that students would: 1. Be able to define sustainability 2. Identify sustainability issues in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere 3. Apply the engineering design process to sustainable projects 4. Summarize methods to measure sustainability 5. Analyze examples of sustainable and non-sustainable programs. Participants were also exposed to field experiences to observe issues in sustainability. Assessment of the course objectives illustrates the need for cooperation among engineering and other disciplines, such as economics and politics, in the design process for a sustainable society. Introduction to the Academic Partners The Institute for Shipboard Education and its educational partner, the University of Virginia, operate the Semester-at-Sea program. The mission of this program is “to educate individuals for leadership, service, and success in shaping our interdependent world. 1 ” The program provides a study-abroad experience in which students and faculty from institutions throughout the world, but primarily from the United States, can compare customs and gain a deeper international perspective. A semester is spent traveling around the world on a ship. Approximately 10 countries are visited during the voyage. While on ship, classes are held and while in port, international observations take place. This ship-board university has approximately 700 students and 35 faculty as well as support staff. The ship has many of the features of a land-based campus: computer center, library, fitness center, medical facilities, as well as classrooms. Classes are offered with credit from the University of Virginia in a wide range of topics such as business and economics, communication, history, environmental science, biology, sociology, literature, the arts, and oceanography. In each course, traditional material is augmented with in-port experiences which illustrate the practical application of that subject This paper will discuss a new class introduced in the Fall 2009 voyage around the world. The course, titled Engineering Design for Sustainability, was offered through the University of Virginia’s Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS) which is housed in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. The multidisciplinary STS department “advances understanding of the social and ethical dimensions of science and technology 2 ”. This paper will describe the development of course and its goals, expand on the course syllabus and choice of texts, discuss the in-port field experiences, and summarize the assessment of both the students and the course. P ge 15481.2 Course development and details The home institution of the course faculty member is the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). A Humanitarian Engineering Program 3 has been developed at CSM to educate engineering students to solve the problems of fulfilling basic human needs both locally and abroad. The program offers a minor in Humanitarian Engineering and requires a core of both social science and engineering courses aimed at applying appropriate technology to serve the underserved of the world. In an attempt to bring the Humanitarian Engineering concepts to both engineering and non-engineering students at the Semester-at-Sea program, this course, Engineering Design for Sustainability, was developed. The three-credit hour course was designed at the lower division level. The objective of this survey course, beyond providing a basic introduction to sustainable development concepts, was to recognize the challenges of sustainable development from an engineering design perspective. The course topics included a definition of sustainability and a look at examples in the world of both sustainable and unsustainable designs. Issues included an investigation of both economic and technological aspects of sustainability. In the course, there was an attempt to measure sustainability and investigate possible appropriate technologies for sustainable development. Students observed projects in the field throughout the semester and studied how sustainable they might be. Specifically, the course objectives were that students would: 1. Be able to define sustainability 2. Identify sustainability issues in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere 3. Apply the engineering design process to sustainable projects 4. Summarize methods to measure sustainability 5. Analyze examples of sustainable and non-sustainable programs. The course consisted of 24 sessions of 75 minutes each. The syllabus is listed below. 1. PreContent Assessment, Introduction 2. Definition of Sustainability, Brundtland Report 3. Continuation of Brundtland Report 4. Continuation of Brundtland Report 5. Visit from Ship Engineer on workings of the ship’s energy and water systems 6. Examples of issues in sustainability in history (Easter Island, Ireland, Iowa) 7. Modern examples of sustainability (UN Water project, Honduras) 8. The Engineering Design Process and Characteristics of Sustainable Engineering Design 9. Atmosphere Structure and Climate Issues 10. Hydrosphere Structure 11. Hydrosphere Issues; water treatment methods – slow sand filters, SOLDIS 12. Lithosphere Near-surface Structure and Issues 13. Mid Term exam 14. Natural resources 15. Energy resources 16. The Role of Technology in Solutions P ge 15481.3 17. Life Cycle Analysis and Quality Function Deployment – engineering tools 18. Technology and Society: Case Histories of Sustainable Development 19. Measuring Sustainability 20. Is the news good or bad? Class summary 21. Project ( apply design process, parts of a proposal, research and brainstorming) 22. Project (choose and defend methodology, economics) 23. Project (appropriate technology and sustainability) 24. Present final designs; post-content assessment Two primary text books and a United Nations Report provided the basis for the course. In addition, numerous journal articles were assigned for reading and discussion. The two text books were The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg 4 (Denmark) and Sustainable Development for Engineers by Karel Mulder 5 (The Netherlands). These two text books were chosen because they both were written by Europeans and gave opposing points of view on many, but not all, issues. Both books quote the same data sets, but often come to different conclusions. The goal in using these two books was for the students to become critical readers and to learn to draw their own conclusions from a variety of sources. In addition to the two primary text books, The United Nations Document, Our Common Future 6 , more commonly referred to as the Brundtland Report was read and discussed. This report, dating from 1987, introduces challenges in the arena of sustainability. Students were assigned chapters in the document to report on in class. Their report included a summary of the 1987 information and an update through a literature search of each topic. The Brundtland Report and its update provided the foundation for the rest of the course. One of the first topics in the class was to define sustainability. The Brundtland Report, as well as both text books use the definition below. Figure 1. Definition of Sustainability from the Brundtland Report 6 . The Engineering Design Process as a problem solving technique was introduced. Although the engineering majors were familiar with the process, the non-majors were not. The engineering majors were able to share examples of engineering design and use of design tools. In addition to the traditional steps of the engineering design process, constraints for sustainable design were discussed. These included: 1. Increasing local economic diversity 2. Reducing the use of energy Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: ≠ the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and ≠ the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.