Environmental education for all engineers

The paper describes Environmental Engineering education in Germany. The dual system of engineering education is outlined having scientific-oriented programmes at university level and application-oriented programmes at ‘school of engineers’ level. The historical development of Environmental Engineering and its main topics are described as well as its common integration in the study programme of Civil Engineering. The paper then focusses on the educational programmes for Environmental Engineering itself. The organisation in a preparatory module, a basic subject module and a specialized module is discussed. Topics, special courses and the time frame of the education programmes in Environmental Engineering are presented. The programmes of 3 selected universities, Hannover, Kaiserslautern and Cottbus, are described in greater detail and their specific character is outlined.

Nowadays all documents and studies related to sustainable development emphasize the need for a change of attitude and the responsibility of the universities for its implementation. Depend on this objective of environmental engineering BSc education is to develop competences like complex system approach, problem recognition and resolution, lifelong learning and responsible attitude for the environment in addition to high level scientific knowledge. To achieve this goal, besides professional academic training, environment education needs to be implemented, where project pedagogy -as the strategy of environment pedagogy-can be efficiently applied. The study aims to prove the effectiveness of project education in terms of professional knowledge as well as in environmental attitudes by the results of project and practical training with an ecological-minded. This paper elaborates a field practice in Aggtelek National Park, Hungary. Based on the results it can be stated, that project pedagogy and the field practice can be well integrated with traditional pedagogical methods and may become their efficient supplement in environmental engineering BSc education.

Case studies are pedagogic tools that impart learning experiences through simulated problem-solving and discussion-provoking exercises that describe "real-world" situations.Edwin F. Gay, the first dean of Harvard Business School ͑HBS͒, is credited with adapting the case method of instruction in his college as early as 1911 ͑Harvard Business School 2005͒.HBS published its first case study in 1921, and today, the college develops approximately 350 cases each year and sells 6,000,000 cases for use in business courses across the world.Although case studies have clearly evolved into powerful and critical components of professional programs in business, medical, law, and military schools, they remain less utilized in modern engineering education.Incorporating the case method throughout a professional curriculum exposes students to a variety of practical situations applicable to their field of study.For example, a typical business student studies up to 500 cases in an MBA program.Case studies provide insights into the approach used by practicing professionals to resolve real-world issues and have a tendency to empower young graduates with a sense of déjà vu when they encounter similar situations in the real-world.Such simulated experiential learning is a major component of most professional programs and can fill a critical need in the education of today's environmental engineers.Case studies are not merely a professor's stories.They utilize synthesis of knowledge and applied problem solving to illustrate how engineering works in a societal context, and they can serve as highly effective learning tools for preparing a modern environmental engineering workforce.

The six members of the Gulf Co-operation Countries (GCC)—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—are facing enormous environmental challenges associated with rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, especially in the last three decades, due to its role as a global hydrocarbon energy centre. None of these countries have systematic and specialised academic programmes with the sole purpose of Environmental Engineering Education (E3). The current status of E3 in the universities across the region is surveyed and thus the individual and collective higher education policies towards environmental affairs are highlighted. The E3 policies of the regional universities are then compared to the benchmark status of the European and the US universities. The ABET criteria are used to evaluate non-E3 programs. The survey shows that the environmental engineering subjects were mostly taught under the umbrella of civil or chemical engineering departments in the GCC countries. An educational scheme for E3 in the GCC higher education institutes is proposed that is based on the evolution of E3 approach in the Western universities.

Sustainability as a central issue and as a skill set has become an increasingly important part of engineering education for Civil and Environmental Engineers. ABET criteria for both Environmental and Civil Engineering currently contain language stressing sustainability but the development of curriculum components for these degree programs does not yet have an established norm, with some efforts directed at spreading sustainability across the curriculum in a modular fashion within upper level topics and other efforts directed at one, two or three course sequences specifically focused on sustainability. A body of sustainability pedagogy does exist and has been strongly promoted by both AEESP and NSF and is now a topic of discussion by ASCE. Florida Gulf Coast University was established in the late 1990’s as a “green university’ as part of the State University System in Florida. The school has environmental sustainability as part of its formal mission in a region acutely sensitive to climate change and dependent on the construction and tourism industries and continuous growth for economic stability in a shrinking and fragile ecosystem. As part of the original design of the Environmental Engineering curriculum, a Sustainability in Engineering course was established and first taught in the 2008-2009 academic year. The senior-level course is required for Environmental Engineers and serves as an environmental elective for many Civil Engineers. Performance in the senior level Sustainability course varies widely. Good students in both disciplines achieve student learning outcomes at high taxonomic levels. Weaker students in Environmental Engineering also have high outcome achievement. A large cohort of Civil Engineers however, fall short in achieving learning outcomes at the highest levels. This study attempts to assess these differences and improve overall achievement of sustainability skills for Civil Engineering students. We will use initial survey instruments in these classes as well as in at least one additional Civil Engineering class (sustainability focus included) to assess student attitudes and depth of knowledge prior to and after completion of the Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering course in sophomore year and prior to and after the Sustainability course in senior year. Data has been collected this year (senior level evaluated at end of year) and will continue to be collected over the next several years continuing a longitudinal study that will focus on our students’ developing levels of expertise in formulating sustainable solutions to real life engineering problems.

The ASCE EWRI Environmental Multi-Media Council ~EMMC! Awards Committee each year ~1! reviews papers in the Journal of Environmental Engineering and the Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management to make recommendations for three EWRI Awards ~Hering Medal, Horner Award, Greeley Award! and five Society awards ~Norman Medal, Croes Medal, Wellington Prize, Collingwood Prize, and ASCE State-of-the-Art Award!; ~2! makes recommendations for the Huber Research Prize, based on submitted nominations; and ~3! makes a recommendation for the Freese Award and Lecture. While ASCE has numerous awards for published papers related to environmental engineering, there are few awards to recognize different kinds of professional achievement. In Spring 2001, the EMMC Awards Committee proposed and received approval for three new, broader-scope awards. Award for Achievement in Environmental Engineering Education—to honor an individual who has made outstanding contributions to environmental engineering education, both at the individual’s home institution and more broadly.

The engineering program at Rowan University was started in 1996, the result of a $100M gift to Rowan University in 1992. This allowed the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) curriculum to be developed with ABET 2000 in mind. A committee of nationally renowned experts provided the starting point, which was further developed by faculty and outside consultants. Consequently, the Rowan University Civil Engineering curriculum includes some of the most successful innovations in engineering education. The focus is on technical excellence, communication skills, and a well-rounded general education. The engineering curricula provide for a hands-on, team-oriented approach to a highly interdisciplinary education. The purpose of this paper is to describe the ABET 2000-oriented curriculum, along with the assessment system used to ensure continual improvement. Many of the curriculum innovations are incorporated in the Engineering Clinic classes, which students enroll in every semester. Students from all disciplines work together on projects beginning in the Freshman Clinic, which is devoted to engineering measurements and reverse engineering. This continues in the Sophomore, Junior and Senior Engineering Clinics. In Sophomore Clinic, students work on multidisciplinary design projects. This course is also tied to the students’ communication courses, allowing faculty from engineering and communications to work together. In Junior and Senior Clinic, students work in small teams on industry or government sponsored projects. Other innovations include a seminar course on practice issues and a two semester senior design course. Preparation for our first ABET accreditation visit began in earnest in Fall 1999. As our first graduating class was in May 2000, our first ABET visit was in Fall 2000. A number of assessments are used to ensure continual improvement, including evaluation of select course assignments, surveys, exit interviews, faculty reflection, etc. Many assessments have numerical results that are related to green, yellow, and red flags. Green flags indicate that expectations are being met, while yellow flags indicate that correction may be needed. Red flags indicate that an immediate corrective action is needed. Other assessments are qualitative in nature. For example, the faculty meets at the end of each semester to discuss courses just completed. The resulting reflection can lead to improvement in individual courses or in a series of related courses. In this paper, we describe our curriculum (and its development) and our ABET assessment system.

A series of pedestrian bridges in the Mossy Creek area in Mount Solon, VA, were washed away after historic flooding in May and September 2018. There is a need to rebuild the bridges so that community members and visitors can access both sides of the creek's banks, specifically for the creek's primarily recreational activity of fly fishing. To respond to this problem, seven engineering students joined a special projects class coordinated by three engineering faculty members at James Madison University (JMU). In this class, students engaged with community stakeholders, developed a preliminary design of a bridge, and researched stabilization techniques of the streambed that can protect a new pedestrian bridge and trout habitat during future flood events. During this engineering process, the students sought to understand the partnership among Trout Unlimited (a non-profit), the private landowners, and the VA Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF). In that partnership, there are posted restrictions against wading through the environmentally-sensitive creek to prevent contaminants and invasive species from entering and harming the creek's ecosystem. This class is an extracurricular course offering in the JMU (non-discipline specific) engineering program, primarily centered as a problem-based approach to a specific realworld problem in the local community bounded by various constraints (e.g., community needs, environmental regulations, timeliness of construction, etc.). Through this class, students are participating in a course designed to encourage experiential learning and support interest in the engineering disciplines of civil and environmental engineering.

The post-September 11 events have caused many people to reassess interests, goals, and activities. In the particular sphere of protecting against bioterrorism threats and mitigating their effects, there is a particular role for environmental engineering researchers and practitioners. A useful definition of environmental engineering is ‘‘the application of engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment for the protection of human health, for the protection of nature’s beneficial ecosystems, and for environment-related enhancement of the quality of human life’’ ~Bylaws of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers!. The autumn 2001 anthrax events have caused the threat of bioterrorism to gain increasing recognition. However, this has not been the first realized or threatened malicious use of biological agents. At least 200 such situations have occurred worldwide since 1900. The understanding of and response to a threat posed by a malicious biological release definitely involves the use of ‘‘engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment for the protection of human health.’’ Particularly, this requires skills that are in the toolbox of environmental engineers, including risk assessment ~dose-response modeling, exposure assessment!, cleanup technologies, and design of systems to reduce vulnerability. The question of ‘‘what is a safe level’’ poses questions in the context of bioterrorist events that are quite analogous to the question ‘‘how clean is clean’’ in the context of site remediation. It is entirely possible to develop dose-response relationships for pathogens that could potentially be used. From this, with the usual exposure calculations we perform ~how much air is breathed, water or food consumed, etc.!, one can arrive at an answer ~with input from decision makers as to acceptable risk!. The question of how to remediate a site where exposure occurs may involve technologies that are quite familiar ~albeit in other contexts! to environmental engineers. For example, in the remediation of the Hart Senate Office Building, the use of chlorine dioxide, which is used in drinking-water disinfection, played a significant role. We have learned particularly over the past 25 years how to design water and wastewater disinfection systems to achieve public health protection, and more recently how to apply UV to treat infectious agents in air. The development of rational standards for remediation of spaces contaminated with infectious agents is amenable to similar approaches, and environmental engineers should be central to this activity. There are interesting and complex issues with respect to the design of facilities resistant to contamination ~or spread of contamination! from malicious use of microorganisms and to the remediation of spaces in which such use has occurred. When the problem focus is on the ~indoor! air or contact surfaces with air ~e.g., HVAC ducts!, the spread of contamination and the rate at which remediation can occur ~due to penetration of any chemical agents that may be used in the gas phase! can be limited by transport through this complex environment. Lessons that have been learned in the field of indoor air pollution and industrial hygiene have direct relevance. Many of the facilities that could be targets for malicious use of microorganisms are directly within the purview of frequent environmental engineering activity. These include drinking-water systems, wastewater collection, and treatment systems. These must be looked at in detail on a site-specific basis to assess whether additional barriers ~in the form of treatment, monitoring, site modifications or security! need to be put in place to reduce vulnerability. Environmental engineers will need to work in close collaboration with colleagues in mechanical, architectural, civil, and other engineering disciplines in these tasks. Environmental engineers design systems and processes to protect against and cleanup after the release of contaminants into air, water, and land environments. These activities are equally necessary and appropriate when the contaminants are microbial and are released as a consequence of deliberate malicious activity. Vulnerability assessments of these systems to potential threats can be conducted by environmental engineers applying tools perfected in such disciplines as nuclear or mechanical engineering ~failure analysis, event-tree analysis, probabilistic safety, and reliability analysis!. Hence, there is no question that there is a link between environmental engineering and bioterrorism. As there are new challenges to the public health and the environment, our profession must rise to the occasion and show our strength in new applications. But one of the strengths, and joys, of the profession has been the historic incorporation of new skills to meet newly recognized challenges.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Environmental Education (EE) is being transformed into a more complex model, where different environmental, social, and economic factors are taken into account. This model is called Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), which seeks to create the foundations to achieve sustainable development. In Higher Education, there are some examples of the transition process from EE to ESD, especially in Europe, but in some places from Latin America, until now the ESD model is being explored in universities and its acceptance is reviewed. This is further enhanced in engineering programs where ESD is still not very visible. This research presents an analysis of the transition from EE to ESD in an Environmental Engineering program at Santo Tomas University in Colombia, Latin America. A survey was conducted to three groups of students, two groups formed under the EE model, and another group for which an ESD course was created. From the survey and a curricular analysis, it was possible to identify the inclusion status and the student's acceptance of this undergraduate program for the ESD model. As a global result, it is identified that the curriculum is still anchored to EE, but students find the ESD model more attractive and up-to-dated.

Emerging pedagogies and technologies are instrumental in adapting educational processes and tools to changes and challenges of the contemporary world. Among them, the global climate changes, together with their associated processes and consequences, bring capital questions for education of all levels, from policymakers to elementary students. This chapter presents the conceptual and practical integration between emerging pedagogies, as outdoor, phenomenon-based education and citizen science, within a transdisciplinary framework, to be applied in formal basic education. Two successful case studies at coastal areas are presented. “Phenomenon-based education” is focused on real-world problem solving and interdisciplinary approaches. Natural environments, the most usual in “outdoor education,” offer countless complex and systemic phenomena for analysis, which require not only interdisciplinary collaboration, but also ethical and normative coordination, whence a “transdisciplinary” approach. “Citizen science” is a complementary instrument for studying and comprehending phenomena through actual scientific investigation. All of them are in agreement with “environmental education” principles, which, besides providing an integrated vision of the world that includes all living beings and their environments, also empower people to develop proactive and responsible reactions to social problems. Recent and emerging technologies, including digital media, by contributing to emerging pedagogies, have become important allies for education, especially when considering younger generations, for whom smartphones, tablets, and other devices are essential elements in their lifestyle. Several tools, such as “QR codes,” and their alternatives, viz., “radio frequency identification tags” (RFID) and “augmented reality,” are discussed, according to how they can be particularly applicable to outdoor education. Efficient “social network” and “educommunication” strategies are complementary educational instruments, fostered by new technologies and digital media, essential to sharing and multiplying highly successful results, and to enabling students, educators, and community members to discuss and solve socio-environmental problems. Our understanding is that these emergent pedagogies and technologies can increase the society’s access to formal and environmental education, thus corresponding to relevant tools to sustainability.

Environmental education (EE) has become the only tool for environmental sustainability in training processes in Colombia, for basic cycles in primary and secondary, as well as university education. EE tends to transform human actions in nature, based on multidisciplinary knowledge that supports decision-making. Its goal is to generate a change in social behavior in order to achieve the recovery, conservation, and preservation of the environment. In Colombia, education for sustainable development (ESD) is embedded in EE. These educational models (EE and ESD) seek to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs), which generally seek the economic and social well-being of nations, both for current and future generations. Environmental engineering is a relatively new degree course in Colombia and Latin America since it appeared in the mid-nineties, and it must involve EE within its curriculum. Students are trained in this trend. This research intends to demonstrate, through a curricular review of the environmental engineering curricula and also surveying students from this degree, the level of inclusion of EE in Latin America. Strengths are identified in the curricula, such as the strong presence of EE in disciplinary subjects and opportunities for improvement based on the needs of the students. The situation in South America is also included in this study.

The objective was to create active and didactic methodologies involving environmental education and educational technology to articulate pedagogical practices in the multifunctional resource room that aim to develop liberating and inclusive teaching. The relevant study addressed emerged through results produced during pedagogical practices aimed at sustainability in interface with processes that permeate a democratic, liberating and, mainly, inclusive environmental education. The activity and pedagogical experience was developed in the multifunctional resource room of a primary and secondary school located in the municipality of Igarapé-Miri, northeast of the Pará Amazon. From observations in the school context, it was found that there was no systematic practice focused on education and environmental citizenship in the regular teaching room and in the space where multifunctional educational inclusion activities were developed capable of enabling interaction between students, aimed at for the construction and manufacture of teaching materials and some toys with reused materials. The speech creates possibilities from the games and games that children go through the development process until they acquire, through experience, values and knowledge, skills and awareness of the importance of taking care of the school space in which they are inserted. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to change traditional teaching practices, toys and games as a methodological solution for inclusive teaching and learning in interface with environmental education, as they create an atmosphere of admiration, and consequently end up activating and activating the functions neurological and physical, encouraging thought and physical parts.

The Times, They Are Changing Again

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Addressing and Assessing Program Outcomes in a Civil Engineering Department Seminar Course Abstract Four of the twelve Program Outcomes established for the Brigham Young University Civil and Environmental Engineering Department are: Be able to communicate ideas effectively, work in teams and lead others Be familiar with professional practice, business management, and public administration Be aware of cultural, societal, contemporary, historical, global and sustainability issues Be committed to life-long learning as licensed engineers of integrity and faith These types of outcomes have been difficult to incorporate into traditional Civil Engineering curricula. A weekly seminar course has been developed to facilitate the development of competencies associated with these program outcomes. “Civil Engineering Seminar” meets one hour each week and is required each semester for all students who have declared Civil Engineering as a major. The course is managed by elected officers of the department’s student chapter of ASCE, under direction of the course instructor. . Presentations are made each week by guest speakers or students. By carefully selecting speakers, positive reinforcement of the importance of each of the necessary competencies can be given to students on a very regular basis. As a part of the Seminar students are required to complete at least five hours of service on projects developed for the course. Service projects are engineering related and developed by students in the course. The last semester students are enrolled in Seminar they are required to write five papers relating their experiences. These papers are evaluated and used as one of the main tools for assessment. Civil Engineering Seminar has been an effective tool to help meet program objectives and excite students about their future in civil engineering. Introduction After carefully considering the Engineering Accreditation Commission/Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology’s (EAC/ABET) general engineering program criteria and their civil engineering program-specific criteria the Brigham Young University Civil and Environmental Engineering program developed 12 program outcomes. Among these outcomes were the following: Be able to communicate ideas effectively, work in teams and lead others Be familiar with professional practice, business management, and public administration Be aware of cultural, societal, contemporary, historical, global and sustainability issues Be committed to life-long learning as licensed engineers of integrity and faith These outcomes directly relate to the EAC/ABET general engineering program Criteria 3 (d), and (f) through (j): (d) an ability to function on multidisciplinary teams,