This project is an effort between faculty in the social sciences, environmental sciences and engineering to create interdisciplinary undergraduate courses and labs in the area of sustainable engineering and ecological design at the University of California Santa Cruz. The project is part of a larger institutional effort to develop a curriculum in sustainable engineering and ecological design that educates students from a broad range of disciplines in the principles and practices of the planning, development and deployment of technological and social systems and institutions that can meet the immediate resource needs of society while protecting ecological systems. The investigators are creating two specialized courses, one in Technological Literacy and one in Social-Institutional Literacy. The course in Technological Literacy provides instruction in the quantitative aspects of sustainable science and engineering with an emphasis on problem solving to students in the social sciences and humanities. The course in Social-Institutional Literacy provides instruction in social science concepts relevant to sustainability issues to students in the physical sciences and engineering. The project also includes three hands-on laboratories focusing on renewable energy sources, green building and agroecology and permaculture. The educational materials and evaluation and assessment results are being disseminated through a website and through both disciplinary and educational conferences and journals. The courses developed in this project are expected to have a significant female enrollment.
