2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Social, economic, and environmental considerations, commonly called the “triple bottom line” of sustainability, are critical components of a civil engineering education. In fact, civil engineering programs seeking accreditation by the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET are required to include application of such considerations. Criterion Three of the EAC General Criteria requires seven Student Outcomes, describing expectations for students’ abilities at the time of graduation from an accredited engineering program. Student Outcome #2 requires “an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors” and Student Outcome #4 requires “an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts.” Clearly embedded within these two outcomes are the triple bottom line of sustainability. Furthermore, Program Criteria from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) requires that curriculum include application of the “principles of sustainability, risk, resilience, diversity, equity, and inclusion to civil engineering problems,” application of “an engineering code of ethics,” and application of “professional attitudes and responsibilities of a civil engineer.”  The importance of these criteria are reflected directly within the preamble to ASCE’s Code of Ethics, which provides four fundamental principles for engineers to govern their professional careers, the first being to “create safe, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure.” Currently, civil engineering programs typically teach sustainability indirectly, generally as a theme accompanying more conventional disciplines or through select embedded lessons within traditional courses. Some universities employ upper-level electives, clubs, or even independent study experiences to teach sustainability principles to undergraduates. Most courses dedicated to sustainable development are limited to graduate programs. In this paper, we present the results of a faculty team’s efforts to design a new course on sustainable infrastructure development as a part of undergraduate civil engineering curricula. We conduct benchmarking with existing programs that teach infrastructure and sustainable development as explicit courses within civil engineering. We crosswalk the pedagogical framework within ASCE’s Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Model to the draft syllabus and specific elements of the new course, to include a structured organization with appropriate learning objectives for each lesson, demonstrations and other in-class activities, and proposed out-of-class assignments. We further map specific learning objectives and learning activities to requirements for program accreditation by ABET. The resulting course syllabus, learning objectives, and crosswalk to accreditation criteria can serve as a model for faculty seeking to expand their course offerings within the civil engineering program.