2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The purpose of this WIP research paper is to examine the role technology plays in the development of minoritized students’ agency and environmental responsibility in sustainability-oriented informal engineering learning. The continuous advancements in low-cost and accessible technology have created new opportunities for technology-aided education. One such opportunity is the ability to support students in more closely interacting with global issues that may have been too expensive or logistically unrealistic earlier. Such new technologies, including 3D design software, augmented reality, and virtual reality, have the potential to help students better understand concepts pertaining to sustainability and the impact of engineering on the environment. In our work, we have learned that students’ perceptions of environmental responsibility grow when they can conceptualize and recognize their agency and presence within environmental phenomena and related expectations from human actions. Students’ knowledge of the relevance of sustainability in regard to cities and farms and its impact on the environment, advanced. Over the last three years, we have worked with about 40 students in a highly subsidized afterschool program that serves students in a gateway town in the Northeast with a largely minoritized population. We engaged these upper elementary and middle school students in various activities, including sustainable city and farm design, using virtual and augmented reality. Our data collection has included a series of interviews before, during, and after workshops where they shared their understanding and decision-making relevant to sustainability, as well as observations during program activities. The research question for our study is: How does technology impact minoritized students’ agency and environmental responsibility? In this paper, we will share how, as students develop a more concrete conceptualization of sustainability, their personal ideology towards sustainability shifts. For some students, engaging with the technologies, as mentioned earlier, deepened their understanding of different elements of sustainability and their personal responsibility within sustainability. Additionally, engaging with these technologies allowed students to imagine alternate sustainable futures for their town. Using technology to educate youth on sustainability works towards the overarching goal of encouraging students to think more critically about the impact humans have on the environment and how individuals can contribute towards positive, sustainable change locally and develop long-term sustainability-oriented mental models.