Collaborative Project: Development of Materials for Teaching Design for Sustainability via Spiral Leaning

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Engineering - Chemical (53)Sustainable development is an increasingly important topic in engineering education due to the seemingly rapid depletion of natural resources around the world. Sustainability, however, is a concept and practice very different from traditional engineering in scope, content, spatial/temporal aspects, ways of thinking, and problem solving. The effort in this project is centered on the development of a set of materials covering basic sustainability concepts and Design for Sustainability (DfS) methodologies, a project-based learning approach that integrates the entire curriculum, and an assessment method to evaluate the materials and student learning effectiveness. In this project, educational materials covering DfS are being developed and tested in the curriculum via a spiral learning approach. The materials are being implemented in a first-year introduction to engineering course, a sophomore level mass and energy balance course, and a senior level process design course in the chemical engineering programs at the partnering institutions. The spiral learning strategies and the opportunities for students at different educational levels to work together on challenging real-world engineering problems with a sustainability focus is motivating students for improved learning and helping them bridge the gap between learning and application.