Development and outcomes of a design for the environment course

We have developed a Design for the Environment (DfE) course which is a dynamic mix of non-traditional lectures and hands-on DfE laboratory experiments that are infused with real-world interactions. Our engineering teams (E-teams) partner with local green industries and organizations to identify and engineer relevant product and process innovations in the context of sustainability. The DfE course was partially designed using objectives from the Sustainability in Higher Education Assessment Rubric (SHEAR), an ABET-aligned rubric that identifies and describes eight elements essential to courses aiming to teach concepts of sustainability to students. The key feature of this course is a semester product or process development project where the students work closely with green industries with the aim of addressing sustainability challenges. Students learn about product design and innovation in concert with issues of sustainability. During the semester the students interact with the companies and participate in hands on learning labs that develop an understanding of methods to solve problems related to sustainability. We will discuss the concepts of this course as well as discuss course assessments.