Sustainability in Construction Education

It is widely recognized that sustainability should be incorporated into engineering education. To prepare students with sustainability knowledge and techniques, engineering educators need to develop appropriate class contents and effective teaching techniques. Based on experience from developing and teaching a sustainability course within the construction management program in the civil engineering department, this paper discusses the process of identifying sustainability knowledge areas, course planning, and lessons learned from the class. The paper also includes main class topics as well as students’ feedbacks, both of which may serve as a starting point for continuous improvement of sustainability education in construction.     

Engineering a New Education

The narrow focus of civil engineering education and practice needs a new paradigm consistent with the essentiality and complexity of civil works in society. Traditional pride of civil engineers in their work is mixed increasingly with the growing frustration from low-level compensation and lack of appreciation and respect. Image programs are not the answer; adding value is. Education confined to the two-century old, four-year format is a hindrance. The content, expectations, and duration of civil engineering education must be changed to create more value. While continuing the “doer” tradition, the new civil engineer should be groomed to be an effective decider and director. Civil works will always be in demand. However, it is to be decided who will lead the planning, design, construction, and operation of civil works...civil engineers or others? Civil engineers are faced with a leadership and management challenge. They must engineer their future or others will engineer it for them.     

Use of Multimedia and the World Wide Web in Civil Engineering Learning

The case study method, which has been proven to be a very useful learning tool, can be further enhanced with the use of multimedia and the World Wide Web. This paper demonstrates multimedia and Web-based enhancement with the design and construction of a port, a large-scale civil engineering project. The main purpose was to create an educational tool that brings into the classroom a “real-life” design and construction problem, including the construction field, operation of equipment, and details of construction methods. This enables civil engineering students to better understand the details of the planning, design, and construction of a complicated project. Furthermore, through the use of evaluation tests, feedback on the students’ understanding of the case study can be provided to both the students and the educator. This application can be expanded beyond an academic environment for use as a learning tool in a business environment, which may be especially beneficial for new engineers.     

Earthbound Civil Engineering Experience for Space Applications

Since the dawn of civilization, the civil engineering profession has served mankind. Civil engineers have provided humanity with safe, reliable, and economical facilities and a livable environment. This paper seeks to outline the potential applications of various Earth‐based civil engineering fields for the engineering, construction, and operation of facilities in space stations in Earth orbit, bases on the Moon and Mars, and the exploration of other extraterrestrial bodies. On Earth, civil engineers have played a key role in design, construction, and operation of ground‐support facilities since the beginning of the space program. The vast and diverse Earth‐based knowledge and experience earned by civil engineers could be applied to create a suitable infrastructure in space to satisfy human needs. Therefore, civil engineers can play a significant role in the future expansion of human endeavors into space. The time has come for civil engineers throughout the world to come together; take the challenge posed by time, human needs, and ambition; and extend their joint expertise toward large‐scale projects in space for the benefit of all.     

A Civil Engineer's View from Space

From the perspective of a 250‐nautical‐mile orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, the author has had the opportunity to observe the effects of man on the earth, to reflect on his future in space, and to examine the role civil engineers may have in building our future. In the decades to come, civil engineers will require skills that are not currently provided by universities and which are not adequately represented in professional societies. All disciplines of the civil engineering profession will need to examine their strategies to enable them to establish a significant place on the team. From launch pads to remote sensing satellites, from space stations to lunar bases, civil engineers can and should play a significant role in design requirements, engineering, testing, assembly, and operation. The Aerospace Division of the ASCE should take the lead to insure that civil engineers are prepared to meet the challenge.     

Being Brave in the Brave New World

As civil engineering enters the 21st century, there are four issues engineers need to confront in order to improve the profession. These are time, teams, technology and stewardship. In the future, diminishing project completion times will require engineers to develop new methods of time management without sacrificing project quality. In terms of teamwork, project managers will increasingly need to be broad-scale leaders, with the ability to manage people as well as the technical aspects of a project. Engineers should also evaluate technical issues, focusing on the ethical implications of doing what is only technically correct instead of looking at the overall project. Finally, civil engineers should explore the profession's ethical responsibilities, questioning what role civil engineers should play in terms of stewardship in the social, global and political arenas.     

Demographics and Industry Employment of Civil Engineering Workforce

This paper provides a road map to studies and databases about civil engineering demographics and industry involvement by tracing workforce statistics, engineering degrees, data on industries and government, and economic forecasts. It is aimed at helping civil engineering managers, educators, and policy makers understand how their workforce evolved and what it will face in the future. The engineering workforce comprises about 1.5 million professionals in the United States (second in size only to that of teachers); of this number, civil engineering, at about 200,000 workers, is third behind electrical and mechanical engineering. However, the study shows that aggregation of workforce and economic statistics hides unique characteristics of civil engineering work caused by the concentration on consulting and state and local government. In fact, over 80% of civil engineers work either for consultants or government. This characteristic of civil engineering employment needs more study, particularly to determine how best to educate civil engineers to respond to the public–private arena of infrastructure and environment. During the past century, civil engineering has been a steady field with good opportunities, but civil engineers in the future will face the same career issues and pressures as other professionals. Global production of new engineers has now passed the one million-per-year mark, with U.S. production being about 12% of the total. This large supply of engineers will present intense competition to all engineering disciplines. ASCE faces many challenges to respond to the many changes in the civil engineering profession. The concept of institutes contained in ASCE's strategic plan will address many of the technical issues, but the study indicates that professional and educational issues need more attention.     

World Survey of Civil Engineering Programs on Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites for Construction

The Editorial Board of the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Composites for Construction (Lawrence C. Bank, Editor) sponsored a survey of the civil/structural engineering programs around the world on the subject of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, excluding the traditional steel–concrete composite construction and fiber reinforced concrete. This paper summarizes the main results from the survey. During the last decade, considerable focus has been devoted to the use of FRP composites in construction. The main driving force is the need for revitalizing the aging infrastructure with innovative materials and structural systems that last longer and require less maintenance. As the construction industry embraces FRPs in the field, the need for educating civil engineers with background on the subject has become more evident. Despite a significant number of field applications and laboratory research, the survey shows that FRPs have not yet been fully implemented in the engineering curricula, and the classrooms are still lagging behind. To improve this situation, civil engineering and their extension programs must provide sufficient training on unique features of FRPs so that engineers could design or specify them in construction. This survey should be repeated as a gauging tool again at the end of this decade.     

Increasing Engineers’ Role in Construction Safety: Opportunities and Barriers

A number of factors suggest engineering and construction professionals should discuss increasing designers’ role in construction safety. Design civil engineers could contribute to construction worker safety by performing five tasks differently than current custom and practice: reviewing their designs, creating design documents, assisting the owner in procuring construction, reviewing submittals, and inspecting work in progress. However, four sets of major barriers would prevent designers from increasing worker safety through these tasks: lack of safety expertise, lack of understanding of construction processes, typical contract terms, and professional fees. Potential ways for reducing these barriers are suggested. The United Kingdom regulations requiring engineers to design for safety are summarized, but it is concluded that similar legislation in the United States would not be appropriate.     

Developing and Teaching a Course in “Applied Sustainability and Public Health in Civil Engineering Design” at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

This paper presents the writer’s pedagogical development and delivery of a new undergraduate course in applied sustainability and public health in civil engineering design in the Department of Civil Engineering at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. This innovative course introduces undergraduate civil engineering students to methods in sustainability indicators, life-cycle analysis, environmental input-output analysis, and risk analysis to evaluate the environmental impacts and public health impacts of civil engineering design. The paper discusses the learning objectives and course themes of preventive design, multicriteria decision making, and systems-level analysis. The course syllabus and the design project in which students were asked to design a water transmission pipeline and evaluate its environmental impacts are discussed in detail. An overview of the pedagogical methods and student evaluation tools employed in the course is given. An evaluation of learning outcomes and student impressions of the course suggest that topics on design for environment, sustainable development in an international context, and the interface between sustainability, engineering, and policy development should be included in future editions of the course.     

Green Building and Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainability Education for Civil Engineers

This paper discusses a framework for incorporating sustainable design/thinking as a new civil engineering course and experiences from the pilot offering. Important areas are outlined to aid all engineers in understanding sustainability in context with traditional engineering principles. Green-building rating systems were used to introduce the concepts of sustainability in buildings and infrastructure, highlighted by presentations from green-building professionals. By providing a better understanding of sustainability through education, civil engineers can provide proactive solutions to a growing global infrastructure.     

Center for Excellence in Construction Safety

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has funded the establishment of a Center for Excellence in Construction Safety at West Virginia University. The overall objectives of the Center include: (1) The promotion of hazard control components in engineering curricula; (2) the promotion of hazard awareness and safety‐related knowledge and skills specific to the construction industry; and (3) the promotion of the consideration of safety issues during project design for the purpose of reducing injury during construction. Specific tasks to be accomplished by the Center include: (1) The development of course materials and instruction on construction safety for civil engineering students at the undergraduate and graduate levels; (2) the promotion of such course materials for adoption by other civil engineering academic institutions; (3) the design and conduct of projects related to the improvement of current construction practices that would develop design parameters to reduce trauma during the construction phase; and (4) the establishment of techniques for the collection and dissemination of construction safety information, educational materials, developed guidelines, and design criteria to engineers, architects, contractors, and trade unions.     

Construction Management Program

The typical limitations of the existing construction management programs are the lack of an integrated approach to managerial decisions in real life construction environment, not enough emphasis on engineering design, construction methods and communication skills, and poor coordination between the undergraduate and the graduate studies. An effective construction management program should. integrate teaching on undergraduate and graduate levels and research. On the undergraduate level it should provide the students with a good insight into all managerial tasks in civil engineering projects. On the graduate level it should allow specialization in the various areas of interest both to the practicing engineers and also to students who wish to pursue an academic career. The program should strongly interact with research and engineering practice.     

Incorporating a Sustainability Module into First-Year Courses for Civil and Environmental Engineering Students

As articulated in the Bodies of Knowledge for Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering, all civil and environmental engineering students should be introduced to the concept of sustainability. A sustainability module was added into two required first-year, 1-credit introductory courses, one for civil engineering and one for environmental engineering. Data from approximately 150 students were collected. Student attitudes about sustainability were evaluated using a written survey. There was greater initial knowledge of sustainability and positive attitudes toward sustainability among students enrolled in the environmental engineering course compared with those in the civil engineering course, but this did not translate into better performance on the related homework assignment. There was strong evidence that the inclusion of the sustainability module encouraged the students to consider sustainability in subsequent course assignments, even when not explicitly prompted to do so. This indicates that early emphasis of sustainability may affect the students’ concepts of its importance in civil and environmental engineering.     

Bridging the Gap between Academics and Practice: A Capstone Design Experience

As part of graduation requirements, the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison requires a minimum of one three credits course in a capstone design experience. The main objective of this course is to allow students the opportunity of undertaking and completing an open-ended design project. Supervision of the projects is performed by practicing engineers and department faculty. The course is a practice oriented design class that integrates several civil engineering areas. Special emphasis is placed on integrating constructability concepts with structural engineering, mechanical systems, electrical systems, and other project details. Student groups not only complete project designs, but also perform feasibility studies, value engineering, and prepare a construction schedule and cost estimate based on the designs they have generated. The objective of this paper is to describe the senior level capstone design experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

Engineer’s Legal Exposure for Facilities Built on Expansive Soils

This paper will focus on the legal liability issues facing the professional engineer engaged in the design and construction administration of facilities built on expansive soils. These legal liability issues will be discussed from the perspectives of the geotechnical, civil, and structural engineer to alert those professionals to the legal ramifications of their daily activities. By focusing on these legal aspects facing the engineers that are involved in the process of building on expansive soils, hopefully litigation can be avoided or successfully defended. Attention to the legal ramifications of engineering is mandated by today’s litigious environment in the construction industry, especially when designing and administering the construction of facilities built on expansive soils.     

Embedding Leadership in Civil Engineering Education

Leadership is a key element in meeting the needs of the civil engineering profession in an era of heightened global competition. Consulting and construction executives intent on maintaining a competitive edge are calling upon educators to produce civil engineers capable of leading multidisciplinary teams, combining technical ingenuity with business acumen, and effectively communicating narrow engineering endeavors within a comprehensive social framework. Our industry is challenging undergraduate schools to broaden curricula beyond the intellectual endeavors of design and scientific inquiry to the greater domain of professional leadership. Many agree that formal leader development must be incorporated into engineering education programs to respond to the professional demands of practicing engineers; however, the means of achieving the objectives within tightly constrained curricula are debated. This paper explores the changing nature of civil engineering in a globally competitive environment, reviews the issues in realigning civil engineering education, identifies key leadership skills relevant to engineering, and proposes solutions for developing leaders at our undergraduate institutions.     

Impact of Nanotechnology on Future Civil Engineering Practice and Its Reflection in Current Civil Engineering Education

Current civil engineering education should address the need to provide a broad vision, develop the higher-order skills of future civil engineers, enable them to adopt emerging technologies, and formulate innovative solutions to complex problems. This paper introduces relevant nanotechnology developments to convey the new vision and inspire creativity in civil engineering. It also presents a pedagogical framework for integrating nanotechnology education into a civil engineering curriculum and cultivating self-regulated learning and creativity skills for civil engineering students. The pedagogical framework includes the introduction of nanotechnology innovations and other relevant innovative technologies, and explicit instructions on cognitive strategies for facilitating and inspiring self-regulated learning and creativity. It is implemented with problem/project-based learning for a cocurricular project that requires self-regulated learning and creativity. This pedagogical framework provides a model for integrating emerging technology education and higher-order skill development into existing engineering curriculum. The outcomes from the implementation of the pedagogical framework are presented, and their further improvements are discussed.     

Dynamic Planning and Control Methodology for Design∕Build Fast-Track Construction Projects

A dynamic planning and control methodology is developed by integrating the applications of axiomatic design concepts, concurrent engineering concepts, the graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT), and the system dynamics modeling technique. The goal of the proposed methodology is to help create a dynamic project plan for design∕build fast-track civil engineering and architectural projects where unforeseen changes can be absorbed in the project schedule without creating major interruptions. The axiomatic design concepts are applied to formulate and evaluate various work methodologies, and to create a project plan based on the selected work methodology. The concept of concurrent engineering is adapted to develop a fast-tracking framework based on the task production rate, the upstream task reliability, and downstream task sensitivity to the upstream error. The GERT diagramming scheme is used to calculate the project duration probabilistically by incorporating the possible branches and loops in the project. The system dynamics modeling technique is applied to analyze the causality links of relevant factors in the construction system, and further identifies the important variables that determine the success of a particular overlapping strategy. Consequently, with a rigorous and systemized methodology to help project planning, potential problems can be addressed early before construction. The overall increase in productivity and efficiency as a result of a better planning process can consequently promote the competitiveness of the construction industry.     

Student Assessment of a Problem-Based Learning Experiment in Civil Engineering Education

This paper describes an experiment with problem-based learning (PBL), an instructional methodology used in response to the challenges posed by today’s professional education. Contrary to the conventional model that places an application problem after concepts or topics have been introduced, PBL uses the problem to initiate learning. Besides promoting the construction of knowledge, it may also contribute to the development of some skills and attitudes deemed important for engineers’ professional practice. This research, of a qualitative nature, intended to investigate how students evaluate this methodology and its potential to attain the educational goals set for the course. In order to answer the research question, the methodology was implemented in the civil engineering curriculum of a Brazilian public university. The results herein presented, deriving mainly from classroom observations and an end-of-course questionnaire, show that most of the students evaluate the methodology positively. Even considering the short duration of the course and its small number of credits, it may also have promoted the development of some skills and attitudes besides knowledge acquisition.