Range of Practices of Sustainability Incorporation into First-Year General Engineering Design Course | CU Experts

This work explored different methods of incorporating sustainability into first-year engineering design (FYED) courses. Each term at the University of Colorado Boulder there are 6-12 sections of FYED, each taught by different instructors from an array of departments. The general course learning objectives, calendar, and outline are provided for instructors but how they choose to implement these is uniquely their own. Even though sustainability is not explicitly included in the course requirements, several instructors choose to integrate sustainability topics into their sections of the FYED course. Each instructor does so utilizing unique methods. Faculty were interviewed about potential sustainability incorporation (or indicated a lack thereof via an email response). These descriptions of sustainability incorporation are compared with students’ self-ratings of the extent to which the course impacted their preparedness in sustainable practices, and with self-perceptions of other course outcomes. The findings provide ideas for other instructors interested in incorporating sustainability into FYED courses.

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