The general objective of this curriculum development project is to prepare material and a curriculum for teaching environmental issues to a wide range of undergraduate engineering and science students. The curriculum will include: a) modules that can be incorporated into individual disciplinary courses, and b) a complete curriculum for a self-contained course including a text. The specific components of the project have the following objectives: 1. To develop teaching material that uses a project-based approach to understand the principles in science, engineering and policy that affect environmental decision-making. The materials will include: a) case studies using decision-making contents, b) team projects of realistic environmental issues, c) role-playing exercises that emphasize decision-making. 2. To demonstrate - teach and evaluate - the materials at two institutions: These institutions are Rose Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The courses and student groups will include: a required course for all civil engineering juniors as a first introduction to environmental engineering (at RHIT); science and engineering students pursuing an environmental engineering minor (at CMU); and, a core course for environmental studies minors (students from all majors, including fine arts, humanities and social sciences, science and engineering at CMU). 3. To evaluate the outcome of this project-based teaching approach. This demonstration will include detailed evaluations by students as to benefits of the approach for learning and interest, changes needed for future courses of this kind, and what the possible effects may be on future careers/lives. Both formative and summative evaluations will be conducted during the project. We will also conduct evaluations pre-course, and post-course, and continue the evaluations after graduation for those students who took the demonstration courses - 2 years, and 5 years after graduation. A pilot workshop involving a few fa culty will be used as part of this evaluation. 4. To prepare a handbook of the methods used in this curriculum for dissemination. In addition to the curricular materials, we will prepare a handbook of methods including the use of team projects and cooperative learning, concept maps and influence diagrams. This will be used and revised during the pilot faculty workshop
