skip to main content


Title: Leveraging Sustainability to Teach About Social Justice in Civil Engineering Curricula
Sustainability is a vital interdisciplinary concept to address within engineering education. Furthermore, the natural connections that exist between sustainability and social justice provide an optimal opportunity to integrate both into curricula. We argue that engineering curricula ought to include sustainability and social justice so future engineers are trained to understand both societal and technical implications of their work, while acknowledging the challenges engineering faculty may face in conceptualizing social justice or social sustainability. We then highlight how new sustainable design rating systems, such as Envision and The Living Building Challenge, embed inclusion and social justice into their ratings and how these sustainability rating systems can help engineering faculty bring social justice into their classrooms in ways that meaningfully link to engineering content. Finally, we present two examples of how sustainability and social justice can be incorporated into the civil engineering curriculum through inclusive pedagogy and new curricula: 1) a semester-long effort to document, design, and improve the inclusive pedagogical practices in a first-year engineering course that included the theme of sustainability throughout much of the class meetings; and 2) a new assignment about the Envision rating system and the societal implications of rebuilding a major component of regional infrastructure. We conclude with recommendations that other instructors can use to begin incorporating social justice in their courses.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1726268
NSF-PAR ID:
10334937
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
IJEE International Journal of Engineering Education
Volume:
38
Issue:
3
ISSN:
2540-9808
Page Range / eLocation ID:
742-755
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. In 2017, the report Undergraduate Research Experiences for STEM Students from the National Academy of Science and Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) invited research programs to develop experiences that extend from disciplinary knowledge and skills education. This call to action asks to include social responsibility learning goals in ethical development, cultural issues in research, and the promotion of inclusive learning environments. Moreover, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) all agree that social responsibility is a significant component of an engineer’s professional formation and must be a guiding force in their education. Social Responsibility involves the ethical obligation engineers have to society and the environment, including responsible conduct research (RCR), ethical decision-making, human safety, sustainability, pro bono work, social justice, and diversity. For this work, we explored the views of Social Responsibility in engineering students that could provide insight into developing formal and informal educational activities for future summer programs. In this exploratory multi-methods study, we investigated the following research question: What views of social responsibility are important for engineering students conducting scientific in an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)? The REU Site selected for this study was a college of engineering located at a major, public, comprehensive, land-grant research university. The Views of Social Responsibility of Scientists and Engineers (VSRoSE) was used to guide our research design. This validated instrument considers the following major social responsibility elements: 1) Consideration of societal consequences, 2) Protection of human welfare and safety, 3) Promotion of environmental sustainability, 4) Efforts to minimize risks, 5) Communication with the public, and 6) Service and Community engagement. Data collection was conducted at the end of their 10-week-long experience in Summer 2022 using Qualtrics. REU students were invited to complete an IRB-approved questionnaire, including collecting demographic data, the VSRoSE-validated survey, and open-ended questions. Open-ended questions were used to explore what experiences have influenced positive student views of social responsibility and provide rich information beyond the six elements of the VSRoSE instrument. The quantitative data from the VSRoSE is analyzed using SPSS. The qualitative data is analyzed by the research team using an inductive coding approach. In this coding process, the researchers derive codes from the data allowing the narrative or theory to emerge from the raw data itself, which is great for exploratory research. The results from this exploratory study will help to strategically initiate a formal and informal research education curriculum at the selected university. In addition, the results may serve as a way for REU administrators and faculty to create metrics of impact on their research activities regarding social responsibility. Finally, this work intends to provoke the ethics and research community to have a deeper conversation about the needs and strategies to educate this unique population of students. 
    more » « less
  2. As social justice issues facing our nation continue to be placed in the foreground of everyday life, it is important to understand how undergraduate civil engineering students perceive and understand relations between social justice and our infrastructure systems. Additionally, as more civil engineering undergraduate programs increase the emphasis on ethics and equity issues in their curricula, we must also seek to understand students’ awareness of their influence, as civil engineering professionals, to improve infrastructure systems that contribute to injustice and inequity. This paper presents findings from a pilot study conducted as part of an NSF-funded grant implementing cultural and curricular changes in a medium-sized civil engineering department in the southeast. Drawing on frameworks that examine how individuals critically understand systems of oppression, and the justification used to explain these systems this work examined student perceptions of inequities in societal infrastructure systems. The present study was guided by the following research questions: (1) Are undergraduate civil engineering students critically aware of inequities in society’s infrastructure systems? (2) To what degree are undergraduate civil engineering students comfortable challenging the status quo? (3) Is there an association between students’ critical awareness of inequitable infrastructure systems and their agency to promote systemic change as civil engineering professionals? Study data included survey responses to validated scales measuring: critical consciousness, system justification beliefs, social empathy, and sociopolitical control beliefs. New instrumentation was also piloted assessing equity-related perceptions and beliefs about civil engineering and infrastructure systems. Participants were junior and senior undergraduate civil engineering students (n = 21) enrolled in a professional development, community, and strategic change course, with data collected throughout the Fall 2020 semester. Results suggest that students did have awareness of infrastructure inequities and, on average, did not have strong system justification beliefs. However, there was not an association between students’ awareness of inequities and their agency beliefs about promoting systemic change as civil engineers. After presenting study results, we discuss implications of study results and propose directions for future research. 
    more » « less
  3. When confronted with systematic racism, social justice, and equity issues, engineering and STEM education often assumes that these topics will be covered in other courses and are not relevant to STEM. However, engineering as a discipline has one of the greatest effects on society’s well-being. From the raw materials used, products created, and emissions generated, all aspects of engineering have direct and indirect impacts on humanity. Our current engineering education project works with upper elementary and middle school teachers to apply a culturally relevant engineering design (CRED) framework within their classrooms. This framework is adapted from UTeachEngineering and culturally relevant pedagogy from Gay and Billings is embedded within each step of the design process. The North Dakota Native American Essential Understandings are used to frame and inform the culturally relevant pedagogy. Tribal elder’s stories and experiences are centered along with community leaders in each of the school’s communities. Responses from students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. Teachers have noticed increased engagement from all students when cultural and community leaders have been invited into the classroom and involved in the engineering design process. Students who normally do not see themselves represented in STEM professions have taken active leadership roles in their group’s engineering design process. Teachers have also recognized that culturally relevant pedagogy can be utilized in all aspects of their curricula. With the success of the project in elementary and middle school classrooms, the question then became, how can we see similar success in our college classrooms? When brainstorming how to incorporate culture and community in our curricula it became apparent that best practices in engineering education have the opportunity to intentionally involve community and cultural leaders. ABET learning outcomes require the “consideration of public health, safety, and welfare” in engineering design and “the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts.” When making engineering design decisions, who will be affected if there is an accidental release of chemicals to the environment? Which communities are affected by global warming? Will the public be able to afford the new product that is being produced? Will the new processes or products add value to people’s lives? And how do we train future engineers to consider all community members, not just those who look like them, but those from the most marginalized groups? This talk will introduce our culturally relevant engineering design framework, provide ways to include community and cultural leaders within courses, and how, with the help of Northwestern’s Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion resources, to create homework problems that reflect social justice and equity issues within engineering 
    more » « less
  4. Electrical and computer engineering technologies have evolved into dynamic, complex systems that profoundly change the world we live in. Designing these systems requires not only technical knowledge and skills but also new ways of thinking and the development of social, professional and ethical responsibility. A large electrical and computer engineering department at a Midwestern public university is transforming to a more agile, less traditional organization to better respond to student, industry and society needs. This is being done through new structures for faculty collaboration and facilitated through departmental change processes. Ironically, an impetus behind this effort was a failed attempt at department-wide curricular reform. This failure led to the recognition of the need for more systemic change, and a project emerged from over two years of efforts. The project uses a cross-functional, collaborative instructional model for course design and professional formation, called X-teams. X-teams are reshaping the core technical ECE curricula in the sophomore and junior years through pedagogical approaches that (a) promote design thinking, systems thinking, professional skills such as leadership, and inclusion; (b) contextualize course concepts; and (c) stimulate creative, socio-technical-minded development of ECE technologies. An X-team is comprised of ECE faculty members including the primary instructor, an engineering education and/or design faculty member, an industry practitioner, context experts, instructional specialists (as needed to support the process of teaching, including effective inquiry and inclusive teaching) and student teaching assistants. X-teams use an iterative design thinking process and reflection to explore pedagogical strategies. X-teams are also serving as change agents for the rest of the department through communities of practice referred to as Y-circles. Y-circles, comprised of X-team members, faculty, staff, and students, engage in a process of discovery and inquiry to bridge the engineering education research-to-practice gap. Research studies are being conducted to answer questions to understand (1) how educators involved in X-teams use design thinking to create new pedagogical solutions; (2) how the middle years affect student professional ECE identity development as design thinkers; (3) how ECE students overcome barriers, make choices, and persist along their educational and career paths; and (4) the effects of department structures, policies, and procedures on faculty attitudes, motivation and actions. This paper will present the efforts that led up to the project, including failures and opportunities. It will summarize the project, describe related work, and present early progress implementing new approaches. 
    more » « less
  5. With the understanding that the mining industry is an important and necessary part of the production chain, we argue that the future of mining must be sustainable and responsible when responding to the increasing material demands of the current and next generations. In this paper, we illustrate how concepts, such as inclusiveness and the circular economy, can come together in new forms of mining—what we call inclusive urban mining—that could be beneficial for not only the mining industry, but for the environmental and social justice efforts as well. Based on case studies in the construction and demolition waste and WEEE (or e-waste) sectors in Colombia and Argentina, we demonstrate that inclusive urban mining could present an opportunity to benefit society across multiple echelons, including empowering vulnerable communities and decreasing environmental degradation associated with extractive mining and improper waste management. Then, recognizing that most engineering curricula in this field do not include urban mining, especially from a community-based perspective, we show examples of the integration of this form of mining in engineering education in first-, third- and fourth-year design courses. We conclude by providing recommendations on how to make inclusive urban mining visible and relevant to engineering education.

     
    more » « less