Injecting Sustainability Across the Curriculum

The concept of sustainability is becoming an increasingly important consideration in engineering decisions.  However, questions as to how to provide a background in this area to both on-campus students and engineers in the field naturally arise.  Several approaches have been employed at Kansas State University for addressing these issues.  At the undergraduate level, these include introducing green engineering concepts into the senior design course, an undergraduate project to establish solar-powered charging stations for electric vehicles on campus, and a research experience for undergraduate (REU) program during the past several summers.  At the graduate level, coursework addressing quantitative metrics of sustainability has been designed along with short, topical distance education opportunities and a multi-university graduate certificate in bioenergy and sustainable technology.