2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Meaningfully addressing the climate crisis will require the transformation of civil infrastructure, including the development of utility-scale wind and solar farms to supply clean energy and the redesign of building stock, transportation systems, drinking and wastewater systems, and other infrastructure to reduce energy demand. Civil engineers, as the technical professionals tasked with the design and maintenance of such large-scale infrastructure projects, will be instrumental in the transition. However, the traditional civil engineering education does not include the discussion of how civil engineering expertise might be applied to confront climate change. In addition, traditional engineering education of all disciplines reflects broader societal values that have historically emphasized growth over sustainability and equity. This emphasis on limitless growth is what led to the climate crisis to begin with. Therefore, to prepare engineering students to be a part of the effort to address the climate crisis, civil engineering instructors need to develop curricula that will ensure students acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, as well as an understanding of the far-reaching impacts their work will have.

Many institutions of higher education have begun to prepare undergraduate students to serve as part of this workforce by developing sustainability-focused coursework, concentrations, minors, and in some cases, majors. Such curriculum initiatives, while necessary, take years to develop. Institutions that do not yet offer similar initiatives need strategies to develop them gradually.

Engineering instructors can start this development process by designing sustainability-focused teaching material that can be easily integrated into existing courses. One source of guidance for the design of such teaching materials is the Engineering One Planet framework, which builds upon ABET Student Learning Outcomes and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to provide a list of sustainability-focused learning outcomes for engineering students. The EOP learning outcomes emphasize both skills acquisition and the development of a broader understanding of the context of climate change.

This paper presents newly developed material that can be integrated into existing courses that are part of the civil engineering degree program at an undergraduate-focused engineering school. The material presented draws on the EOP framework and is designed for courses at the first-year, sophomore, and junior level. Student feedback to assess learning outcomes and student interest is presented. In addition, the authors discuss an ongoing effort to coordinate the development of climate change-related curriculum and undergraduate research opportunities across multiple degree programs within the school of engineering at the authors’ institution.