Investigating the synergies of sustainability and bim through collaborative project-based learning

Abstract

The construction industry is undergoing fundamental transformation due to economic, social, and environmental development. Highlights of emerging trends include the prevalence of green building practices and a wide adoption of new information technology (IT) such as building information modeling (BIM). The paradigm shift demands a higher level of competencies in sustainability and BIM, which generates a profound impact on college education in design and construction related fields. This study explores the effective use of collaborative project-based learning to enhance students' understanding of sustainability and BIM implementation in facilitating green building design. In the fall of 2014, the faculty in the Construction Management (CM) program at California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) closely examined two existing courses (CM-132 and CM-177) through a joint course project. CM-132 encapsulates BIM principles, modeling skills, and implementation of BIM to facilitate high performance building design and construction. CM-177 introduces green building design guidelines, rating systems, and common practices. Students from the two classes made up project teams to co-develop Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) strategies and conduct performance analysis that is essential for accomplishing LEED certification with BIM for a project on campus. The collaborative project-based learning is responsive to the real world scenario where green building design and BIM are often implemented through an integrative process. Both direct and indirect measures were used to assess the effectiveness of the proposed collaborative project-based pedagogy on selected core student learning outcomes (SLOs). Rubrics were developed for each measure. This paper discusses the findings, lessons learned from this study, and provides insights into future improvements.