547 - LCA for Engineering Education

To educate students on sustainability and how to apply sustainability practices to engineering practices, an engineering life cycle assessment (LCA) module was developed and piloted within a first-year engineering course at an undergraduate institution. Currently, gaps exist in engineering education, specifically with how to quantify and justify design decisions as they relate to tangible resource use. To understand the breadth of such gaps, a complete literature review was conducted on LCA within both engineering and science education across the globe. Analysis of over sixty programs demonstrated the need for triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) thinking with respect to design decisions. To enhance engineering education with respect to design decisions, a module was created for use in first-year engineering courses. The module includes real-world examples of LCA with respect to material choice when prototyping, and associted energy and water impacts. Future work will focus on student outcomes and feedback after module implementation.