Sustainability ethics among first-year civil and environmental engineering students

Abstract

This research assessed student attitudes about ethics and sustainability during first-year courses for civil engineering and environmental engineering. In both courses, the second learning module in 2009 and 2010 taught the students about sustainability and the fourth learning module focused on ethics. The student homework assignments throughout the semester were used to gauge student attitudes, awareness, and knowledge about sustainability and ethics, and more specifically the ethical imperative for sustainability. In addition, it was of interest to evaluate if students in the environmental engineering course had a greater "sustainability ethic" compared to their peers in the civil engineering course. On the initial "defining the discipline" assignment, an increasing percentage over time of the civil engineering students included sustainability in their discussions, 17% to 31% from 2008 to 2010. In comparison, 35-37% of the environmental engineering students included sustainability. In 2009 and 2010 the second course module on sustainability did not increase the percentage of students who discussed sustainability as part of the fourth homework assignment on ethics; the percentage of the ethics essays that included the term sustainable and/or sustainability were 29-47% among civil engineering students and 26-29% of the environmental engineering students. In the special topic papers written by the civil engineering students for Homework 6, significantly more students discussed sustainability in relation to their topic in the semesters that the course included a sustainability module (21-24% vs. previous 5%). In the final reflective essays at the end of the semester (homework 7), 60-86% of the students mentioned ethics; there were not specific trends over time or differences between the civil and environmental engineering courses. The semesters with the sustainability module significantly increased the discussion of sustainability by the students: 5% civil engineers before the module vs. 52 and 76% after the module; 35-37% of environmental engineers before the module vs. 77-79% after the module. About 40% of the students incorporated sustainability into their definition of civil or environmental engineering; this seems to indicate that the students had integrated sustainability into their identity of these engineering disciplines. Based on statements within the final essays, more of the environmental engineering students seemed to recognize sustainability as an ethical imperative than the civil engineers. The results indicate that a 1-credit course can positively impact students' attitudes and awareness toward developing a sustainability ethic. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education.