Urban sustainability - An engineering course for general education Making the case for engineering to be active in General Education

摘要

This paper will address two closely related topics. The first is the design and successful delivery of an engineering course for General Education at the university level. The focus of the course is how the built environment influences the social, economic, and natural environment. Engineering decisions about the materials used to create the built environment affect structural integrity, energy performance, and the sense of place in cities. These factors, in turn, affect the quality of life for all citizens - so the topic of this course is of interest to students of all disciplines. As such it offers an opportunity to introduce non-engineering students to the way that engineers think and make decisions. The second topic is an exploration of why engineering departments are not typically major players in General Education. We in engineering have often secluded ourselves from the rest of the university. The effect of this is that students outside of engineering view the subject matter as out of reach when many of the main ideas are really central to the shared life of our nation. One way to overcome this barrier is to offer engineering courses meant for students of all academic disciplines.