Teaching Sustainability in Engineering through Public Scholarship

这个工程教育研究项目的目标是探索学生如何通过一种新兴的可持续性工程教育方法的机制和影响来学习。具体而言，研究将测试的命题，可持续发展教育是有效的，当它发生在公共奖学金的参与和协作的背景下。 PI寻求更全面地了解公共奖学金对工程可持续发展教育的贡献，将学生学习成果的评估扩大到两所大学的三个额外的工程课程，重点是可持续工程设计。之前的NSF资助允许教师和学生与北方夏延部落的成员合作研究、改进和部署绿色建筑技术。对该系列课程的初步评估显示，该课程在培养学生的知识和态度方面产生了积极影响，从而导致对环境负责的行为。通过拟议的工作，PI将开发四门新课程，并对四门工程课程进行统一评估。参与研究的新课程包括更多样化的学生基础以及其他教师，这些教师已经证明了对工程可持续发展教育的承诺。此外，为这项探索性研究选择的课程代表了各种伙伴关系，从而能够比较不同程度的社区参与学生的学习成果。产品的结果将是：1）一套评估工具将制定和测试（调查、访谈和焦点小组问卷），以支持将公共奖学金作为在工程教育中教授可持续性的一种手段;（二）一组关于四门课程的学生学习成果的数据将被制作出来，并与每个课程的公共奖学金评级相关联。课程，以帮助确定不同水平的公共奖学金参与对工程可持续性教育的影响;和3）将建立一个在线实践学习社区，以支持通过公共奖学金实践将可持续性教育纳入工程。

The objective of this engineering education research project is to explore how students learn through the mechanisms and impacts of an emerging approach to sustainability education in engineering. Specifically, the research will test the proposition that sustainability education is effective when it takes place in the engaged and collaborative context of public scholarship. The PIs seek to understand more fully the contributions of Public Scholarship to sustainability education in engineering by broadening the assessment of student learning outcomes to three additional engineering courses focused on sustainable engineering design at two universities. Prior NSF funding has allowed faculty members and students to research, refine, and deploy green building technologies in collaboration with members of the Northern Cheyenne tribe. Preliminary assessments of the course series have revealed the positive impact of the course in fostering the knowledge and attitudes in students that lead to environmentally responsible behavior.Through the proposed work the PIs will develop four new courses and conduct uniform assessment of four engineering courses. The new courses involved in the research encompass a more diverse student base as well as additional instructors that have demonstrated a commitment to sustainability education in engineering. In addition, the courses selected for this exploratory research represent a variety of partnerships, thereby enabling a comparison of varying levels of community engagement to student learning outcomes. The results of the product will be: 1) a set of assessment instruments (survey, interview, and focus-group questionnaires) will be developed and tested to support the incorporation and improvement of Public Scholarship as a means to teach sustainability in engineering education; 2) a set of data on the student learning outcomes of the four courses studied will be produced and related to the Public Scholarship ratings given to each course in order to help determine the impact of varying levels of Public Scholarship engagement on sustainability education in engineering; and 3) an online Learning Community of Practice will be established to support the integration of sustainability education in engineering through Public Scholarship practices.