IUSE/PFE:RED A&I - Sustainable TRansformation of Environmental engineering Education for Modern society (STREEM)

当今的环境挑战，如获得清洁的水和能源，气候变化，以及污染和废物的处理，具有强烈的紧迫性。人们普遍认识到，要解决这些复杂的挑战，需要环境工程师将工程、自然科学和物理科学、社会科学、商业和通信等方面的概念整合起来，以解决社会在个人、社区、国家和全球层面面临的紧迫挑战，这些挑战跨越了经济的许多部门。目前美国常见的环境工程本科课程无法为毕业生提供足够的现实技能来应对这些现代环境挑战。蒙大拿州立大学诺姆·阿斯比约森工程学院土木工程系提议改变环境工程教育，用四年制主题课程取代当前以主题为中心的课程模式，整合技术、社会和经济能力，并为学生提供反复解决不明确、复杂问题的机会，就像他们作为专业人士将面临的问题一样。该项目与美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的革命性工程部门（RED）计划使命一致，旨在促进工程教育的革命性方法。作为一个适应和实施（A&amp；I）项目，它建立了其他机构采用的基于证据的组织变革策略，在项目的本地环境中应用开创性的教学方法，并宣传工程教育的转变。该项目将围绕技术、社会和经济知识的主题线发展环境工程课程，同时发展一种文化，奖励在整个本科课程中使用最佳教学实践来持续形成专业知识。教师将利用各种经过验证的、高影响力的教育实践和教学法，如探究式和基于项目的学习，促进基础数学、科学和人文课程的知识转移到基于项目的综合课程中。首先，教师将采用一种协作过程来取代大约32个学分的以主题为中心的环境工程课程，这些课程主要在本科课程的最后两年完成，而32个学分的综合课程将从大一开始分布在课程中。这些新课程将作为一种机制，整合剩余的主题课程所涵盖的概念，这些课程仍然构成大部分本科课程。其次，教师将为每一年的课程开发适当的基于问题的学习活动，为学生提供解决各种开放式和复杂问题的实践，并获得沟通和团队合作的经验。每个项目都将建立必要的知识和价值观，以实现持续的专业发展。最后，教师将制定系统和程序，使教师协调、知识共享和最佳教学实践培训制度化。通过这种方法，学生的经验将转变为一种发展早期，强大和真实的工程身份，并为有效和持续的独立学习提供必要的背景和实践。这将提高学生的保留率、多样性和专业能力。该项目将进一步为其他环境工程项目提供课程地图，包括综合课程中的学科特定线程，评估计划和实施协作教学方法的策略。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Montana State University STREEM Project Public Abstract Today’s environmental challenges, such as access to clean water and energy, climate change, and treatment of pollution and waste, have an acute sense of urgency. There is broad recognition that solutions to these complex challenges will require environmental engineers to integrate concepts from engineering as well as the natural and physical sciences, social sciences, business, and communications to address the pressing challenges facing society at the individual, community, national, and global levels—across many sectors of the economy. The existing environmental engineering undergraduate curriculum common today in the US fails to provide graduates with sufficient real-world skills to meet these modern environmental challenges. The Department of Civil Engineering in the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering at Montana State University (MSU) proposes to transform environmental engineering education by replacing current topic-focused course model with a four-year thematic thread curriculum that integrates technical, social, and economic competencies and provides students with repeated opportunities to address ill-defined, complex problems like those they will face as professionals. The project is aligned with the NSF’s Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) program mission to catalyze revolutionary approaches to engineering education. As an Adaptation and Implementation (A&I) project, it builds off evidence-based organizational change strategies employed at other institutions, applies ground-breaking pedagogical methods in the project's local context, and propagates the transformation of engineering education.This project will develop an environmental engineering program around thematic threads of technical, social, and economic knowledge while developing a culture that rewards the use of best pedagogical practices for continuous professional formation throughout the undergraduate program. Faculty will facilitate the transfer of knowledge from basic math, science, and humanities courses into the integrated project-based curriculum using a variety of proven, high-impact education practices and pedagogies, such as inquiry- and project-based learning. First, faculty will apply a collaborative process to replace approximately 32 credits of topic-focused environmental engineering coursework, which would have been taken primarily in the final two years of the undergraduate program, with 32 credits of integrated courses distributed across the curriculum starting in the freshman year. These new courses will serve as the mechanism to integrate the concepts covered in the remaining topic-focused courses that still comprise most of the undergraduate curriculum. Second, faculty will develop appropriate problem-based learning activities for each year of the curriculum to provide students with practice solving a variety of open-ended and complex problems and gain experience in communication and teamwork. Each project will build the knowledge and values necessary to allow for continuous professional development. Finally, faculty will develop systems and procedures that institutionalize faculty coordination, knowledge sharing, and training in best teaching practices. Through this approach, the student experience will be transformed to one that develops an early, strong, and authentic engineering identity and provides the context and practice necessary for effective and continued independent learning. Improved student retention, diversity, and professional competencies will result. This project will furthermore provide a curriculum map for other environmental engineering programs that includes discipline-specific threads within integrated courses, assessment plans, and strategies for implementing collaborative teaching methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.