A Program to Help in Designing Courses to Integrate Green Engineering Subjects

Robert P. Hesketh, C. Stewart Slater, Mariano J. Savelski, Kathryn Hollar, Stephanie Farrell

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

The need to introduce green engineering concepts to undergraduate students has become recognized to be increasingly important by industry and the general populace. Green engineering can be considered as the way engineering should be done, in that it results in products and processes that have a reduced risk of harm to both the environment and to humans. The use of green engineering practices is a method to reach sustainable development. In many engineering disciplines, aspects of environmental engineering are only taught in an optional senior year course. By placing this subject at the end of their university preparation, this tends to leave an impression with students that environmental concepts are added on after the engineering work is completed. Since one of the precepts of green engineering is that it should be conducted at all levels of engineering practice and design, we believe that it should be taught at all levels. Instead of having only an optional course in environmental or green engineering, we believe that it is more appropriate to integrate green engineering concepts in a range of courses within an engineering discipline. In 1998 the US Environmental Protection Agency initiated a program in green engineering to develop a text book on green engineering, to disseminate these materials and assist university faculties in using these materials through national and regional workshops. This program has developed teaching aides that include: presentation graphics, lecture notes, example problems, homework problems, case studies and experiments. These tools have been tailored to fit specific engineering classes, such as freshmen and sophomore engineering, mass and energy balances, separations, reaction engineering, process design. Using green engineering principles at the start of the design process can lead to processes and products of a sustainable future.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)113-123
Number of pages11
JournalInternational Journal of Engineering Education
Volume20
Issue number1
StatePublished - 2004

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Education
  • General Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A Program to Help in Designing Courses to Integrate Green Engineering Subjects'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this