Making students cognizant of sustainability through a multidisciplinary term project in low level courses

Abstract

Current engineering students need to be equipped with a wider knowledge base in terms of environmental, economic, and social attributes of engineered systems, work, and materials. Sustainability is a perspective that can be introduced in early classes and not only as a technical topic in upper level classes. Lower level sustainability courses can be related to the knowledge gained in the required math, science, humanities, and social sciences through "mind mapping." This paper presents a comprehensive term project entitled "Greening the Engineering Building" that was utilized to simulate sophomore civil engineering students' interest in green buildings through the development of a sustainable alternative to the current engineering building on campus. Students were asked to use passive design strategies to optimize the layout of the building, its location and window sizes, utilize green technologies in the form of geothermal heat pumps as well as solar panels for electricity generation for heating and cooling, and improve the building envelope performance through the selection of proper insulating materials. This project was assigned in CIVL 201: Introduction to Green Buildings. The course focuses on the mix of traditional engineering topics with emerging concepts of green technology in architecture and engineering. Students from various concentrations within the civil engineering department-environmental, structural, geotechnical, water resource, and construction management-were asked to work together in diverse groups of four on the aforementioned project. Prior to the completion of, and at the completion of the project, students were asked a series of questions gauging their interest in sustainability, green buildings, green energy, and materials. Outcomes assessed the increase in interest in sustainability as well as the increase in student learning and understanding of sustainability related topics. Although the students found the project somewhat complex at the sophomore level, they indicated that it broadened their understanding of sustainability issues in civil engineering problems and informed them on how civil engineers are working in a multidisciplinary environment.