Use of Outdoor Living Spaces and Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning in Sustainability Engineering Education
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 137, Issue 2
Abstract
Previous sustainability engineering education studies have suggested the importance of problem-based learning, project-based learning, team-based learning, and interdisciplinary learning. Place-based learning, interacting with outdoors, and building sustainable communities are also important aspects of sustainability education, yet relatively little has been published on how to use these pedagogical approaches in engineering education. The goal of this paper was to illustrate the implementation of all these pedagogical approaches in a graduate-level sustainability engineering education class. Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning and the University of Toledo’s Outdoor Classroom Garden provided the framework for this implementation. Throughout the semester, sustainability engineering students worked toward an engineering solution for how to water the University of Toledo’s outdoor classroom garden. They also estimated the life-cycle cost and environmental impacts of their proposed solutions. The garden project and the design of the course provided many different learning opportunities that might be absent in a traditional civil engineering class.
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Acknowledgments
The writers thank the University of Toledo for permission to install the Outdoor Garden Classroom; UNSPECIFIEDUT Women and Philanthropy for funding the installation; and Fall 2009 sustainability engineering students for their hard work on the project.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 137 • Issue 2 • April 2011
Pages: 69 - 77
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 19, 2010
Accepted: Aug 27, 2010
Published online: Mar 15, 2011
Published in print: Apr 1, 2011
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