2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Incorporating the Envision Rating System as a Teaching Tool for Sustainability in Civil Engineering Infrastructure

The Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision Rating System is becoming a widely used framework for guiding design work and assessing resiliency, social equity, and environmental justice of civil infrastructure projects. To prepare our students and equip them with the knowledge base to proactively utilize this framework as a design tool, we have incorporated the Envision Rating System as a teaching tool with several touchpoints in the required civil engineering curriculum. Envision is introduced in a required sustainable civil engineering course, examined in an engineering mechanics course, and applied in senior capstone design projects. Through our approach, we are utilizing the credits and metrics of the framework to instill a mindset of design thinking that encourages students to consider all relevant Envision credit considerations in their designs, as opposed to training our students to rate projects or earn the Envision Sustainability Professional credential. At the initial introduction of the rating system, students develop an awareness of design considerations related to the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainable development. Then, students delve into one credit category as it relates to a large-scale water infrastructure project in a fluid mechanics course. Finally, students review the entire framework to identify and justify credits that apply to their senior capstone design projects. Through this approach, students are challenged to evaluate how their design meets criteria within relevant credits. Examples of student work show that Envision can be used as a tool to gain knowledge of how designs can be informed by the rating system beyond using it as a tool to retroactively evaluate a project. This approach could be used by other programs as they desire to use a vetted framework to enable students to create sustainable, forward-thinking designs.

Authors

Dr. Jennifer Mueller PE, ENV SP Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Jennifer Mueller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She graduated with her BS in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University and with her MS and PhD in Civil Engineering with an emphasis on Environmental River Mechanics from Colorado State University. Her graduate work focused on exchange of surface water and groundwater, as well as nitrate uptake, in streams with varying degrees of rehabilitation. Dr. Mueller’s areas of interest include water quality, sustainable design, watershed hydrology, and river hydraulics. Current projects involve pedagogical studies for incorporating sustainability and ethical decision making in undergraduate engineering education, with an emphasis on touchpoints throughout the four-year curriculum.
Dr. Michelle Marincel Payne Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Michelle Marincel Payne is an Associate Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology, and her B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla (same school, different name). At Rose-Hulman, Michelle is co-leading a project to infuse an entrepreneurial-mindset in undergraduate students’ learning, and a project to improve teaming by teaching psychological safety in engineering education curricula. Michelle also mentors undergraduate researchers to investigate the removal of stormwater pollutants in engineered wetlands. Michelle was a 2018 ExCEEd Fellow, and was recognized as the 2019 ASCE Daniel V. Terrell Awardee.
Dr. Namita Shrestha Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Namita Shrestha earned her PhD in Civil/Environmental Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology; Master of Science in Civil/Environmental Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Her research interests include bioelectrochemical systems, microbial electrochemistry, resource recovery from waste/wastewater, waste treatment and nanomaterial for bioelectrochemical application. She is passionate about research‐based learning and student-centered pedagogy. She serves as a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and ASEE.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025