Incorporating a Sustainability Module into an Introduction to Engineering Course

Sustainability has become an increasingly central topic for the engineering profession. The sustainability concept requires all of us, as engineers and citizens, to consider much more widely than before the impact of our own lives and of the products and services engineers design. Through a Department of Education funded grant, our university has initiated a long term effort to incorporate the sustainability concept into the engineering courses. Initially, freshman engineering students at our university were introduced to sustainability through the completion of an additional module added to their required introduction to engineering course. This traditional course includes study skills in engineering, the engineering profession, the engineering design process, and ethics in engineering among others. From this additional module, students should be able to define sustainability, to assess the sustainability of their individual lifestyles, and become aware of sustainability efforts on their community. We found strong evidence that the inclusion of the sustainability module increased the awareness of the sustainability concept among first-year engineering students. Additionally, the positive attitude toward sustainability and the willingness to incorporate sustainability in the engineering design process were increased. These results indicate that early emphasis in first-year introductory courses may affect students' attitudes and knowledge of sustainability concepts.