Search for: All records

Scientific literacy, quantitative reasoning, and systems thinking are essential components of developing a sustainability mindset, and thus should form elements of introductory courses in sustainability so that such mindsets can be cultivated from the outset of a student’s academic studies, particularly in engineering. Evaluations of selected student works (9 respondents from 22 enrolled students) suggest that engineering students demonstrate proficiency with well-structured quantitative tasks, and can make progress adopting mathematical habits such as using estimations and orders of magnitued. However, as the activities become less well prescribed, such as in drawing concept maps to illustrate earth systems cycles, they are not as fluent. Further, they need to develop more practice to do “higher order” tasks, such as interpreting, cross-checking, citing, and communicating ideas outside of their routine. Nevertheless, the results of self-assessment surveys are generally positive and suggest that students are aware of the need to achieve the higher order expectations. The results open questions indicate that several students authentically learned scientific and quantitative elements of sustainability thinking, as evidenced by their articulation of specific details about systems thinking, chemistry, and mathematics. 

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) are important elements of a sustainability mindset. As part of an initiative to develop a new program in Sustainability Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and to evaluate the growth of a sustainability mindset among participants, we performed a qualitative analysis of results from a cohort of first year students (5 men, 2 women) who completed a 1-credit JEDI seminar as part of their enrollment in the program. Based on coding student essays, we identified three themes that students expressed that indicate their development of understanding JEDI principles: (a) Diversity and Inclusion: Integration of Diverse Perspectives; (b) Equity, Justice, and Accessibility; and (c) Community-Centric Approach, although the evidence also suggests that not all students fluently apply these ideas in a problem-solving context. Overall, the results suggest that the 1-credit seminar is effective to build essential literacy of JEDI, which will be instrumental in future work in sustainability engineering and design.