Abstract:

This paper describes the development and delivery of a highly atypical, graduate level course in support of the Sustainable Engineering curriculum within the Kate Gleason College of Engineering (KGCOE) at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Over the last decade, a series of innovations has led to the integration of the discipline of Sustainable Engineering within the engineering curriculum at RIT. Sustainable Engineering refers to the integration of social, environmental, and economic considerations into product, process and energy systems design methods. Additionally, sustainable engineering encourages the consideration of the complete product and process lifecycle during the design effort. A number of curricular enhancements have been implemented in an ongoing effort to provide students with methods and approaches that will allow them to minimize the total of the environmental impacts across a system’s entire lifecycle while simultaneously maximizing the benefits to social and economic stakeholders. RIT’s engineering curriculum has been modified via the development of a programmatic undergraduate minor in Sustainable Product Development, the expansion of the required senior capstone course to include projects with sustainability themes, and the development of two Master’s degree programs in Sustainable Engineering. The most recent enhancement in support of these efforts is the development and delivery of a service learning course that will eventually include an experiential education component based in a developing country. “Engineering for the Developing World” focuses on the design principles and social implications of working as an engineer in the context of sustainable global development. Course learning objectives include 1) developing student awareness of international socio-political, economic, and environmental issues, 2) developing the capacity of students to critically analyze issues related to technology development and to evaluate potential solutions, 3) equipping students with technical tools and experience in designing and implementing engineering projects in developing countries, and 4) providing students with the inspiration to use their engineering skills to act for social change and the public good. The course was developed by a team comprised of a RIT alumna with outreach experience in a developing nation, a traditional engineering faculty member, and a sustainable engineering graduate student. The course was also delivered using a team approach. This paper describes the process by which this new course was developed, the course syllabus, and the course assessment data that was collected.

Keywords:

Sustainable engineering, curriculum development.