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A Toolkit for Expanding Sustainability Engineering Utilizing Foundations of the Engineering for One Planet Initiative

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Environmental Engineering Division (ENVIRON) Technical Session 1

Tagged Division

Environmental Engineering Division (ENVIRON)

Page Count

25

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42543

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/42543

Download Count

126

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Paper Authors

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Andrew Schulz Georgia Institute of Technology

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Andrew Schulz is a postdoctoral researcher at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany. Andrew received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in August of 2022, studying the bio-inspired design of elephant trunks and conservation technology. Andrew is a member of the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) Network and is working to educate the next generation of conservation technology practitioners.

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Cynthia D. Anderson Alula Consulting

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Cynthia (Cindy) Anderson (she/her/hers) is the founder and CEO of Alula Consulting. Cindy specializes in innovative sustainability- and online-focused research and curriculum projects for academic institutions, non-profits, government and corporations. Cindy has taught thousands of people through courses and workshops, around the world and online, in the fields of biology, sustainability and biomimicry. She is honored to be a collaborative partner on the Engineering for One Planet initiative since its inception, co-author of the EOP Framework and new framework integration guides, and active EOP Network Member. Cindy holds a MS from Oregon State University, a MEd from Griffith University (Queensland, Australia), and a BSc in biology from the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada).

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Cindy Cooper The Lemelson Foundation Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-7253-4042

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As a Senior Program Officer for The Lemelson Foundation, Cindy leads the U.S. higher education initiative to educate the next generation of inventors and the Engineering for One Planet initiative to change engineering education to equip all engineers with fundamental skills in sustainability.

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Dustyn Roberts P.E. University of Pennsylvania

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Dustyn Roberts is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her B.S. in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (2003), her M.S. in Biomechanics & Movement Science (2004) from the University of Delaware, and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (2014) from New York University. She is passionate about translational research and engineering education.

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Jorge E Loyo Rosales Rice University

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Dr. Jorge Loyo joined Rice's Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Engineering Research Center (ERC) in January 2016 as a lecturer and became NEWT’s Associate Director of Education in January 2017. Jorge coordinates and runs NEWT’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at ASU, Rice and UTEP, and a training program for the REU mentors. He developed and runs NEWT’s Core Course, offered to the center’s first-year graduate students. Jorge collaborates with NEWT’s Industry Liaison Officer and Innovation Ecosystem Director, and the Student Leadership Council in the planning of educational opportunities for NEWT graduate students and postdocs with the center’s industry partners and other professional development activities. At Rice, Jorge is an Adjunct Professor in the Civil & Environmental Engineering and Bioengineering Departments, where he developed and teaches CEVE/GLHT 314: Sustainable Water Purification for the Developing World, a project-based course on sustainable strategies for safe water supply in low-income and developing regions of the world. He collaborates in other project-based courses at Rice, such as Introduction to Engineering Design, advising undergraduate students in the development of water-related projects. He also works with Rice's Center for Civic Leadership in the development of activities to promote student community engagement, such as Alternative Spring Breaks and summer experiences with water-related NGOs in Mexico. Jorge’s previous research and teaching experience as a postdoctoral scholar and professor fall within the areas of water quality assessment, water and wastewater treatment, emerging organic pollutants, and ecotoxicology. He holds a B.Sc. in Food Chemistry from the National University of Mexico, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.

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Kristin Lewis American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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Kristin Lewis is a project director with the American Association for the Advancement of Science where she leads the Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship. Previously, she supported the development of the Fourth National Climate Assessment with the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and she holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Michigan.

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Supraja N. Kumar Smart Surfaces Coalition

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Supraja Kumar is an engineering research fellow with the Smart Surfaces Coalition, where she studies urban development and walkability in the context of urban heat island (UHI) effect mitigation. She has a background as a practitioner in sustainable engineering through Engineers Without Borders-USA, where she worked on water resources projects in Kenya. Supraja holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and physics from Rutgers University.

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Julianne Rolf Yale University

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Julianne Rolf recently earned her PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from Yale University. Her research focus is the water-energy nexus and increasing water access globally. Julianne completed her B.S. at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), where she interned in UCR’s Office of Sustainability and received the UC Office of the President Sustainability Fellowship for an EPA P3 (People, Prosperity, and the Planet) team project. After graduating from UCR, Julianne spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Germany studying lake water quality. While at UCR and Yale, Julianne has tutored and taught math, science, and engineering. She also has taught middle and high school students since 2018 with Eduexplora, an international education program. Julianne has served in numerous leadership roles dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) with the goal of making STEM more accessible for everyone.

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Nelson A. Granda Marulanda Western Carolina University

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Nelson A. Granda Marulanda is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering + Technology at Western Carolina University. Nelson has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from The University of Tennessee Knoxville. Before becoming a professor, he worked in the Eolic and Aerospace industry for several years. Nelson’s research interest revolved around Sustainable Development through the triple bottom line and System Thinking approach. Nelson believes that education is the key to achieving a sustainable world.

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Abstract

Recently, there has been a significant push to prepare all engineers with skills in sustainability, motivated by industry needs, accreditation requirements, and international efforts such as the National Science Foundation’s 10 Big Ideas and Grand Challenges and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper discusses a new toolkit to enable broad dissemination of vetted tools to help engineering faculty members teach sustainability using resources from the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) initiative. This toolkit is to be used as a mechanism to engage a diversity of stakeholders to use their voices, experiences, and connections to share the need for national curricular change in engineering education widely. This toolkit can foster the integration of sustainability-focused learning outcomes into engineering courses and programs. This is particularly important for graduating engineers at this crucial time when we collectively face a convergence of national- and global-scale planetary crises that professional engineers will directly and indirectly impact. Catalyzed by The Lemelson Foundation and VentureWell, the EOP initiative provides teaching tools, grants, and support for the EOP Network —a volunteer action network— comprising diverse stakeholders collectively seeking to transform engineering education to equip all engineers with the understanding, knowledge, skills, and mindsets to ensure their work contributes to a healthy world. The EOP Framework, a fundamental resource of the initiative, provides a curated and vetted list of ABET-aligned sustainability-focused student learning outcomes, including core and advanced. It covers social and environmental sustainability topics and essential professional skills such as communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. It was designed as a practical implementation tool — rather than a research framework — to help educators embed sustainability concepts and tools into engineering courses and programs at all levels. The Lemelson Foundation has provided a range of grants to support curricular transformation efforts using the EOP Framework. With support from The Lemelson Foundation, ASEE launched an EOP Mini-Grant Program in 2022 to engender curricular changes using the EOP Framework. The EOP Network is working to extend the reach of the Framework across the ASEE community beyond initial pilot programs by implementing an EOP Toolkit for EOP Network members and other stakeholders to use at their home institutions, conferences, and informative workshops. This article describes the rationale for creating the EOP Toolkit, the development process, content examples, and use scenarios.

Schulz, A., & Anderson, C. D., & Cooper, C., & Roberts, D., & Loyo Rosales, J. E., & Lewis, K., & Kumar, S. N., & Rolf, J., & Granda Marulanda, N. A. (2023, June), A Toolkit for Expanding Sustainability Engineering Utilizing Foundations of the Engineering for One Planet Initiative Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42543

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