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Session 1793

A Sustained Effort for Educating Students about Sustainable Development

Beena Sukumaran, John Chen, Yusuf Mehta, Dilip Mirchandani, Kathryn Hollar

Rowan University/Harvard University

Abstract

Rowan University has been developing a series of courses that address the importance of sustainable development and practices in the 21st century. This paper details a series of courses taught in the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior year, which emphasizes this practice. The first course in the series is titled “Issues in sustainable development” and is offered to freshmen students as a First Year Experience course and is funded through the Bildner Family Foundation and coordinated by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The course provides an opportunity for Rowan University students, in their earliest tenure, to experience the complexity surrounding issues about democracy, diversity and sustainable development. The course is team taught by faculty in Civil Engineering and the School of Business. The key objectives for this course are to (i) increase awareness about sustainability challenges and issues; (ii) explore appropriate frameworks for thinking about the institutional foundations of sustainability; (iii) understand the roles of different types of institutional actors involved in processes of development; and (iv) understand the environmental impacts of development and explore the role of appropriate technologies in developing sustainable strategies.

The second in the series is an engineering course called Sophomore Clinic II, which is taken by all engineering students at Rowan University. Sophomore Clinic II is the 4th course in an innovative eight semester multidisciplinary engineering design and practice, project-oriented course sequence that is a hallmark of the Rowan Engineering program. The students in this course work on projects related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the course, students participate in a semester-long project in which sophomore students from all engineering disciplines calculate CO2 emissions for the university and propose methods for further reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, they enhance their knowledge by going on field trips to a green building in the area, which is constructed with various recycled materials and employs some of the latest technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve resources. They also examine the sustainability debate in the engineering industry by visiting Dupont’s facilities and having a guest speaker. Sophomore Clinic II also emphasizes public speaking skills, design principles, and engineering economics.

“Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering"

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Mirchandani, D., & Hollar, K., & Sukumaran, B., & Chen, J., & Mehta, Y. (2004, June), A Sustained Effort For Educating Students About Sustainable Development Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13656