This paper summarizes the state of knowledge in relation to advances in education for sustainable development focused on higher education and in generic competencies, reviewing some of the existing proposals in the literature and analyzing other university approaches. It has focused on the curricula, applying a participatory methodology based on surveys and expert consultation for the identification and selection of generic competencies related to sustainability in a civil engineering degree at Universidad Europea (Spain). From the literature review, 17 generic competencies were preselected. A set of five weighted transversal competencies and their acquisition level have been obtained through surveys to stakeholders and interviews with experts. Critical thinking, adaptation to change, decision making, problem solving, and multidisciplinary team-working were chosen in order of importance. Competence acquisition level was addressed as not easy to rate or it seems to be exigent for graduate students. Problem-based learning is also selected as the best choice for the development of these sustainability generic skills in the entire civil engineering degree.

A method to evaluate students’ application of sustainability principles into engineering design and problem solving was developed. Students were presented with two challenge questions that each posed a scenario. Students responded to one question and their answers were scored using a rubric that combined both analytic and holistic scoring criteria to account for sustainability principles. The rubric was iteratively developed and met standard measures of reliability and validity. Based on responses from primarily civil and environmental engineering students at three institutions, it was found that male students, seniors, and participants in many diverse learning activities (extracurricular service, internships, undergraduate research, and engineering design courses) achieved higher rubric scores. Scores on the challenge questions did not correlate to students’ interests in sustainable engineering, which were measured using a Likert-based survey. A challenge-question approach to formative assessment may enable instructors to adapt curricula to foster student learning of implicit sustainability issues in engineering. The rubric may be used with a diversity of content-focused challenge questions as a tool for assessing students’ holistic, sustainability-focused approaches to engineering.

It is becoming more common for sustainability-related engineering classes to engage in various forms of service and project learning activities that provide assistance to partners. However, few efforts have examined the relationship between the types of partners and the motivations for implementation of the sustainability recommendations to provide a larger context to students. The partners in pollution prevention program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln completed an analysis of past partners and found that those in the manufacturing sector were more likely to provide direct financial savings justifications for pollution prevention and sustainability implementation, whereas the public institutions and other businesses were more likely to also cite social factors. An analysis of implemented recommendations found that there was a wide variation in implementation rates and the frequency with which benefits persisted beyond one year for different categories of implemented recommendations. For example, preventative maintenance recommendations had the highest rate of implementation and persistence of benefits, whereas off-site recycling recommendations had a relatively low rate of benefit persistence.

Revised Bodies of Knowledge, constituent input, and student demand are motivating the incorporation of sustainability concepts in traditional engineering curricula. While a variety of methods are in development, ranging from introductory engineering courses to capstone experiences to graduate-level treatment, the addition of new topics in an already constrained curriculum is creating a dilemma for many engineering programs. This work presents an example of how sustainability concepts were incorporated in a traditional civil engineering program administered within a constrained four-year curriculum. Using a variety of the treatments recommended in the literature, United States Air Force Academy civil and environmental engineering students learn and apply sustainability concepts at multiple points and in various frameworks during their four-year programs. Student feedback coupled with learning assessments suggest this framework may provide a more generally applicable model for incorporating sustainability concepts within engineering curricula, with particular focus on the civil and environmental engineering disciplines.

Professional practice within civil and environmental engineering demands that practitioners within the field have knowledge of sustainability. Engineering education has attempted to reflect this standard, as noted in statements of expected student outcomes from ABET. Yet, the degree of integration of sustainability in engineering education is varied and inconsistent across and within institutions of higher learning. In order to address this issue, this study investigates one of the potential barriers to integrating sustainability into undergraduate engineering classrooms: educators’ beliefs regarding sustainability. The two-fold relationship between civil engineering faculty beliefs about sustainability and actual practice of integrating and incorporating sustainability within their classrooms is investigated in this study. Using thematic analysis of semistructured interview data; we present three personas that emerged from the data set. These personas represent characteristics shared among participants’ statements of beliefs and practices in a detailed, descriptive manner. This enables shortening the distance between the study participants, our interpretations of the participants’ statements, and potential readers’ immediate use of these interpretations. The three personas that emerged from the data set revealed a complex relationship between what faculty members believed the field expects of students’ knowledge, the relative importance of sustainability within the curriculum, and their own personal beliefs regarding sustainability in everyday life. By providing insights into these complex relationships, this study fulfills a critical step in developing more effective ways to successfully integrate sustainability within undergraduate engineering classrooms.

Recent natural events such as earthquakes in Japan and storm surge effects in New York have led to the growing interest in sustainable civil engineering. While sustainability topics, such as soil liquefaction and green building design, are typically included within civil engineering programs at the baccalaureate or graduate levels, topics in sustainability can be adapted for secondary school students as well. In addition, efforts to attract quality and diverse students into civil engineering have given rise to engineering camps aimed at secondary school students. This research focuses on the exploration of civil engineering sustainable module topics for secondary school students through the development of content as well as implementation of two case studies. Sustainability module topics are identified and instructional content (lesson objectives, key concepts, activities, experiments, and other pedagogical techniques) are proposed. Two modules are applied at the Bucknell Engineering Summer Camp program, targeting secondary school students. The module topics developed, as well as the case study results, can provide examples for how engineering educators throughout the country can introduce sustainable civil engineering as a way to encourage future civil engineering students.

This research focuses on the development of an energy literacy rubric for scoring project-type deliverables, an approach that has not been taken with respect to energy literacy assessment. The goal is to examine if a rubric-based rating approach is applicable for judging energy literacy based on competition or course deliverables or artifacts. The rubric was developed using a methodology involving related rubric review and adaptation, and an expert review. To examine if the rubric approach may be applicable, the rubric was applied to the Imagine Tomorrow competition, a high school energy competition, and trends in the results were examined to support rubric effectiveness. Competition deliverables include an abstract and a poster. Abstracts submitted to enter the competition from 5 years were available and evaluated for energy literacy and biofuel literacy by two raters. Posters were available only for 1 year and were rated by one rater. Besides identifying trends in the abstract scores, the abstract scores were used to test interrater reliability in which consistency was found to be high. Based on expected trends occurring in both the abstract and poster scores, and the high interrater consistency, it was determined that the rubric rating approach appears to be working effectively, at least for a preliminary evaluation. Future development and refinement of this type of energy literacy rubric may serve to enhance assessment of sustainability educational activity endeavors based purely on the artifacts involved.

Over the past few decades, there has been growing emphasis on sustainable development and a growing need to train students to think sustainably in preparation for their careers as practicing engineers. Thinking sustainably requires the consideration of not only environmental impacts but also societal and economic impacts. Thus, teaching future engineers to think sustainably requires a multifaceted, multipronged approach. To that end, a team of faculty from the Departments of Civil, Industrial, and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington acquired funding from the National Science Foundation to implement a project entitled “Engineering Sustainable Engineers.” The project was designed to infuse undergraduate curricula in the three departments with sustainability, which was augmented by incorporating sustainability emphasis into other aspects of the undergraduate experience. Key program elements were (1) learning modules developed for courses across all levels of matriculation within the three curricula, (2) quality sustainable internships, and (3) a multidisciplinary senior design project with a sustainability focus. This paper summarizes the rationale, approaches, and results for integrating sustainability into the civil engineering undergraduate learning experience.

Sustainability concepts and technologies were integrated in the context of an existing course titled “Introduction to Environmental Engineering” at the University of Cincinnati. It was taught four times with sustainability integration and three times without from 2003 to 2011. Various versions of the sustainability concept were introduced and solid examples related to environmental sustainability were provided, such as green buildings, alternative energy, water conservation, wastewater treatment, and municipal solid waste management, in order to better illustrate the concept to the students. The effectiveness of sustainability integration was evaluated in the forms of homework assignments, exams, student surveys, and instructor observations. The sustainability content accounted for 15 to 25% of course sessions. Comparing with this course without sustainability integration, the formerly intended technical content of the course can still be preserved with sustainability integration.

Energy modeling (EM) facilitates analysis and comparison of energy use across design configurations. EM software can serve as a decision-making tool for professionals throughout various stages of building delivery. This case study describes methods to expose students, who are enrolled in a sustainable design and construction course, to building information modeling (BIM)–based EM capabilities and limitations. The case study focuses on documenting the implementation of a teaching module focused on energy modeling in which students modify location, insulation, and window glazing of a single family home preprogramed into BIM software. After instructor demonstration, students perform an EM analysis for additional locations as homework and answer a question set based on their EM results. The results indicate that students had minor issues interpreting the EM results because they did not fully examine the outputs produced from the energy model to inform their answers on the teaching module homework assignment. Overall, however, research findings suggest that implementing such a teaching module can improve student confidence and perception of EM use in construction delivery decisions. This paper provides an example for educators to include BIM EM or similar teaching modules into sustainable design and construction-related courses.