Teaching Sustainability in Engineering through Public Scholarship

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.