2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Educational tools for teaching policy and science communication to engineering students

Presented at Environmental Engineering Division (ENVIRON) Technical Session 1

Literature and experience show that even though we train engineers to be society’s problem solvers, we pay less attention to discussing scientists’ and engineers’ roles in developing and implementing the policies that ultimately determine society’s well-being. We present experience from two courses we teach to science and engineering students, with the intention to cross the engineering-policy boundary. These courses are offered at the upper-level undergraduate and graduate levels and they have an environmental focus. The first course is focused on the policy making process at both the national and international levels and the role of science communication in policy making. The second course is focused on water technology and policies.

The challenge in introducing engineering students to policy is that it requires students to read non-technical references with a new vocabulary and style and to write in a different style and for diverse audiences (e.g., different social groups and their elected representatives). In a sense, while we teach students to communicate the rigor of their work in technical writing in other engineering courses, in the policy-oriented courses, we ask them to ‘unlearn’ complex phrasing, avoid professional jargon, leave the technical details for the Appendix, and invert the narration triangle, focusing on message first, with clarity and simplicity, in the most efficient communication mode with the shortest possible delivery time.

With reference to the pedagogical bases we have adopted, we present an overview of pedagogical approaches and resources we use in these two courses and share characteristic modules from our courses that demonstrate a) the use of case studies, and b) multi-modal approaches to teaching science-policy communication in engineering courses.

Authors

Dr. Sotiria Koloutsou-Vakakis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7658-6517 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Sotiria Koloutsou-Vakakis (Ph.D.) is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scientist in Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds degrees in Civil-Surveying Engineering, Geography and Environmental Engineering. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Air Quality, Science and Environmental Policy, and Engineering Risk and Uncertainty and is active with K-12 outreach. She has strong interest in engineering education. She develops materials and researches best practical classroom approaches for integrating computation and computational thinking in introductory CEE courses; and for promoting teamwork, communication and problem-solving in context, throughout the CEE curriculum.
Dr. Ashlynn S. Stillwell http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6781-6480 University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Dr. Ashlynn S. Stillwell is an Associate Professor and the Elaine F. and William J. Hall Excellence Faculty Scholar in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on creating sustainable water and energy systems in a policy-relevant context. She earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri (2006), and an M.S. in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering (2010), M.P.Aff in Public Affairs (2010), and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (2013) from The University of Texas at Austin. She received the National Science Foundation CAREER award and the UCOWR Early Career Award for Applied Research for her research work on the energy-water nexus. She was honored with the 2015 Girl Scouts of Central Illinois Woman of Distinction Award in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the 2018 Rose Award for Teaching Excellence, and the 2018 AEESP Award for Outstanding Teaching in Environmental Engineering and Science. Dr. Stillwell has also been included on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students at Illinois. She previously served as Chair of the Board of Directors for Girl Scouts of Central Illinois and Faith in Place.

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