Teaching Sustainable Engineering and Industrial Ecology using a Hybrid Problem-Project Based Learning Approach

Recently there has been an increased societal awareness of the environmental impacts of industrial activities. Many universities have included courses in sustainable engineering and industrial ecology in their engineering/technology curriculum to better prepare tomorrow’s engineering professional. A unifying thread that runs through such courses is a “life cycle” based holistic approach to product, process and infrastructure design. Application of appropriate pedagogy is key to active student engagement in the learning process and to the application of concepts to the solution of technical problems. In this paper a hybrid problem-project based pedagogical approach to teaching sustainable engineering and industrial ecology is described. Problem based learning was used to promote selfdirected student learning of key course concepts in which teams of students solved problems in product or process design. These problems typically were related to the lecture topic that was to be covered for the day. Project based learning was used as a central organizing principle for the course and to enable students to apply the principles of life cycle assessment (LCA) of environmental impacts of a product. The project, which was assigned early in the semester and due at the end, drove all of the learning activities for the semester. Based on the assessment of student learning in 2015 and 2016, the pedagogical strategies adopted are promoting the comprehension and application of sustainable engineering and industrial ecology toward the development of environmentally sound products and processes. Introduction In 2008, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) released a report that outlined 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. These challenges if met would improve our lives. The 14 Grand Challenges were divided into four categories. The first category is sustainability— maintaining air and water quality, protecting freshwater quantity, preventing sea level rise, keeping forests and other ecosystems in good condition, and minimizing artificially triggered climate change [1]. The Royal Academy of Engineering in a report warns “we are exceeding the capacity of the planet to provide many of the resources we use and to accommodate our emissions” [2]. These reports underscore an increased societal call for professionals across government, industry, business and civil society to be able to solve problems related to climate change and sustainable development as part of their work [3]. Professor Robert Socolow of the Princeton Environmental Institute suggested that a greater emphasis on environmental issues called for a change in engineering education [1]. Lord Broers, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering suggests that with infrastructure and engineering products becoming increasingly complex, engineers need to integrate consideration of whole-life environmental and social impacts – positive as well as negative – with the mainstream and commercial aspects of their work [2]. In response to these recommendations many universities have included courses in sustainable engineering and industrial ecology in their engineering and engineering technology (ET) programs. What to teach? Thus, sustainability is a key pedagogical theme for higher education. Many institutions are attempting in different ways to embed the principles and practice of sustainability within their teaching missions [4]. However, since the term sustainability is very broad in scope it is worth exploring what sort of topics and concepts are typically being included in sustainability oriented courses in engineering and ET programs. Allenby and his colleagues offer the following clarification of key terms that must be addressed before proceeding to actually identify the contents of such courses. Accordingly, “sustainable engineering may be thought of as the operational arm of industrial ecology: first use the methodologies of industrial ecology, such as life-cycle assessment, materials flow accounting, or product or process matrix analysis, to determine relevant social and environmental considerations; then use sustainable engineering methods to integrate that knowledge into product, process, and infrastructure design and life-cycle management [5]. This important relation between sustainable engineering and industrial ecology is echoed by Ehrenfeld who states that the concept of industrial ecology is a promising new paradigm that enables industry and society to approach sustainability [6]. Accordingly, in this study a graduate course entitled TECH 5382 – Sustainable Engineering and Industrial Ecology was created and offered primarily to majors in engineering technology. The course content is divided into three major parts. The first part deals with foundational material such as introduction to industrial ecology and sustainability, a comparison between the inherently efficient biological ecology and industrial ecology and the current status of resources. The second part deals with life cycle analysis (LCA), including the what, why and how of LCA. The last part addresses different facets of Design for Environment including product design, process design, material selection, energy use, product transportation, product use, and end of life recycling. How to Teach? The first few times the authors offered TECH 5382, it was mostly offered as a lecture based course with a final project. The final project was on a topic of interest to the student that related to sustainability. Thus, the research involved mostly a summary of other researcher’s findings. The authors found that while this approach was adequate from standpoint of exposing students to sustainable engineering and industrial ecology, it did not promote deep learning nor lead to the development of application skills. Other researchers such as Kagi and Dinkel report that a lecture based approach to teaching LCA allowed theoretical knowledge transfer, but did not allow to address and exercise all the questions and pitfalls that one would face in real LCA projects. Real LCA projects involved situations in which engineers would have to provide solutions despite all the data gaps and other problems like such as making reasonable estimates and identifying uncertainties [7]. In teaching industrial ecology to graduate students, Marstrander and his colleagues recommend that pedagogy should engage students in a holistic and life cycle oriented view of products, processes, and their interactions with the environment implemented through project work [8]. Bessant and her colleagues recommend problem based learning (PBL) as means to engender “transformative sustainability education” which in turn would lead to shifts in perspectives, values and attitudes of learners and create action-oriented, sustainability-literate “change agents” [4]. Wiek and his colleagues report that there is some convergence that academic sustainability programs would benefit from using problem and project based learning (PPBL) approaches in their curricula and courses [9]. Some researchers have also made the case for combining elements of PBL and Project Based Learning (PrBL). Donnellly and Fitzmaurice suggest that PBL and PrBL are part of a continuum and that in application the line between PBL and PrBL is blurred. Further, they add that the two are applied in combination and play complementary roles [10]. Yasin and Rahman advocate hybrid forms of PBL and PrBL in the context of sustainability education [11]. Pitfalls associated with the sole application of one these approaches is avoided in using the hybrid approach. That is, both the risk of getting caught in the knowledge first trap by endlessly analyzing problems as well as prematurely proceeding to the solution without sufficient problem framing and analysis is averted [12], [13]. Based on the forging analysis of prior work, the authors adopted a hybrid PBL and PrBL based approach to learning in TECH 5382. Both PBL and PrBL, use the constructivist and experiential learning approaches [14] that promote deep learning by offering students the opportunity to work with real world sustainability problems and placing emphasis on research. Thus, this change in pedagogy in TECH 5382 represented a shift from lecture based, instructor centric, passive learning to student centered, active learning that included a research based project. Implementation Details The course is a core course for graduate students in engineering technology. In addition, graduate students in business administration, engineering, education, geography and the physical sciences may opt to enroll in this course as an elective choice. This diversity of background helps to promote discussions in the class in which multiple perspectives are offered. In addition, most PBL teams features students with a mix of discipline based background, as an example, a team of three that includes one from each of the following disciplines – engineering technology, business management and education. The key objective of the course is to enable students to approach the design of sustainable industrial products from a life cycle perspective. The topics covered in the lecture include: introduction to industrial ecology, biological ecology, current status of resources (with emphasis on technologically desirable resources), life cycle analysis, design for environment to include product design, process design, material selection, energy efficiency, product transportation, product use and end of life recycling. In order to promote self-directed student learning and a collaborative learning environment in which team members benefit from a multiplicity of perspectives, PBL activities were assigned to coincide with each major lecture topic. The teams typically included 3-5 students. Each team was presented with a problem and asked to present solutions at the next class meeting time when the lecture that pertained to the PBL topic was delivered.