Teaching Students Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Design Project for Sophomore Engineering Students

摘要

Universities can be leaders not only in research advances in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also have the potential to be leaders in practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. All 56 colleges and universities in New Jersey recently joined together to endorse a Sustainability Greenhouse Gas Action Plan for New Jersey. In signing this "sustainability covenant," Rowan University has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 3.5% below 1990 levels by 2005. We have used this agreement as the basis for a novel collaboration between the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS) and the College of Engineering at Rowan University. We have developed a course project in which sophomore students from all engineering disciplines calculate CO2 emissions for the university and propose methods for further reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. This project has been developed for Sophomore Clinic II, the 4{sup}(th) course in an innovative eight semester multidisciplinary engineering design and practice, project-oriented course sequence that is a hallmark of the Rowan Engineering program. Sophomore Clinic II emphasizes public speaking skills, design principles, and engineering economics.