The Final Straw: Incorporating Accessibility and Sustainability Considerations into Material Selection Decisions
The Final Straw: Incorporating Accessibility and Sustainability Considerations into Material Selection Decisions
复制标题
最后一根稻草：将可及性和可持续性考虑纳入材料选择决策中
DOI：
10.18260/1-2--35319
复制
发表时间：
2020
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
S. Lord
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
L. Gelles;S. Lord
工程师被要求平衡和适应工业，环境和社会的竞争需求，为现代问题制定可持续和公平的解决方案。虽然传统的工程课程为学生提供了他们的职业所需的技术技能，但学生往往缺乏如何将复杂的环境和社会因素纳入决策的知识和资源，以便他们准备好面对社会不断变化的挑战。作为一个更大的举措，以提高社会意识的传统技术技能整合到工程课程的一部分，强调可持续发展的环境和社会设计考虑的两部分模块被添加到现有的模块系列在第三年的材料科学课程。本文将介绍题为“最后的稻草”的模块的一部分的设计、实施和评估，该模块的重点是残疾人社区内稻草材料的无障碍性。在本模块中，学生小组考虑了依赖一次性塑料吸管材料特性的边缘化利益相关者的独特设计需求（例如，具有力量和移动性问题的个体）来推荐吸管的替代材料（例如，纸、金属、硅树脂）。在此过程中，他们必须考虑其材料建议的更大的经济，环境和社会影响，并考虑工程设计和公共政策如何无意中排除弱势群体。课程内容（例如，作业、期中问题）以及研究人员的反思被用来评估这一模块。学生们能够描述和综合不同残疾的多个用户的需求到一个层次的材料。虽然没有明确要求考虑环境因素，但学生们无法将环境问题与这一问题的社会方面分开。然而，通过无障碍的透镜来看待这个问题可能会使学生不把经济成本作为首要考虑因素，而是把它们重新纳入社会考虑因素（即，消费者的成本）。
Engineers are called upon to balance and adapt to the competing demands of industry, the environment, and society to develop sustainable and equitable solutions to modern problems. While traditional engineering programs provide students with the technical skills required of their profession, students often lack the knowledge and resources on how to incorporate complex environmental and social factors into decision-making so that they are prepared to face society’s evolving challenges. As part of a larger initiative to integrate traditional technical skills with enhanced social awareness into the engineering curriculum, a two-part module emphasizing the environmental and social design considerations of sustainability was added to an existing module series in a third-year Materials Science course. This paper will describe the design, implementation, and assessment of one part of this module entitled “The Final Straw” that was focused on accessibility of straw materials within the disability community. For this module, groups of students considered the unique design needs of a marginalized stakeholder who relies on the material properties of single-used plastic straws (e.g., individuals with strength and mobility issues) to recommend an alternative material for the straw (e.g., paper, metal, silicone). In doing so, they must consider the larger economic, environmental, and social impacts of their material recommendation, and also consider how engineering design and public policy can unintentionally exclude vulnerable populations. Curricular content (e.g., homework, midterm questions) as well as researcher reflections were used to assess this module. Students were able to describe and synthesize the needs of multiple users with varying disabilities into a hierarchy of materials. While environmental considerations were not explicitly asked for, students could not detangle the environmental from the social aspects of this problem. However, framing the issue through the lens of accessibility could have allowed students to not consider the economic costs as primary and instead reframe them into a social consideration (i.e., cost to the consumer).