2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This WIP paper describes ongoing efforts to integrate sustainable design concepts into a first-year design course.
There is a growing demand for engineers to produce more sustainable solutions. In 2006 NSPE added a professional obligation to its Code of Ethics stating, “Engineers are encouraged to adhere to the principles of sustainable development in order to protect the environment for future generations.” ABET accreditation criteria for 2025-2026 describes design as a process for developing solutions within constraints and lists sustainability as an example. Additionally, ABET student outcomes 3.2 and 3.4 have close ties to the triple bottom line sustainability framework by including consideration of social, environmental, and economic factors, among others. Teaching such sustainable design concepts early in the curriculum communicates the importance of these concepts and allows students to build upon what they learn in later classes.
In spring 2022, a sustainability related project was developed for a first-year introduction to design class for mechanical engineering majors. The course project was inspired by the Paraguayan community, featured in the “Landfill Harmonic” documentary, who formed a children’s orchestra that performs with instruments made of our materials recycled from a local landfill. While having student teams design and then build musical instruments made of trash to form a “junkyard band” with their class, instructors cover design concepts such as stakeholder analysis, requirements and specifications development, design process modeling, mathematical modeling, and technical communication. In addition to covering traditional design concepts, the project topic enables coverage of several sustainable design concepts including: the UN Sustainable Development Goals, assessment of a product’s carbon footprint and embodied energy, and connections to ethical engineering practice. Sustainability considerations, in turn, tie back to best practices in design related to having a holistic process to increase the likelihood of producing a successful solution.
This paper is intended to document the development of the “junkyard band” project including enhancements that were made—to the course overall and the project specifically—to better integrate sustainable design concepts. As the two faculty members who have taught this course, we will share our perspectives on student experiences as well as how we are already improving the course. We will also present our work towards a more formal assessment of these interventions using qualitative techniques to understand what students are learning about sustainable design from the course. We hope to increase student awareness of sustainable design concepts so that they are able to build upon this introduction to the topic in future classes and projects.