Integrating Sustainable Development into a Service ...

Case Study

Integrating Sustainable Development into a Service-Learning Engineering Course

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Keren Mintz 1; Mark Talesnick 2; Bernard Amadei, Dist.M.ASCE 3; and Tali Tal 4

Abstract: This paper describes a unique service-learning course designed to introduce students to sustainable human development through a combination of classroom, laboratory, and fieldwork exercises. It responds to a need to educate engineers in addressing global societal problems. It provides a model that addresses the concerns and recommendations of various engineering accreditation boards in regard to the competencies expected of graduating university engineering students today. The course was multidisciplinary and involved a cohort of international students and faculty. The course employed multiple teaching methods and offered a variety of learning experiences. The study reported in this paper focuses on the students’ views of their learning and the course’s contribution to their development. More specifically, two research questions were considered with regard to (1) students’ learning outcomes and how they matched the course objectives and (2) learning experiences that were perceived as significant in promoting personal and professional development. The research findings imply that the course promoted various learning outcomes, and that the participatory and active learning experiences were the most significant learning experiences for the students. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000169. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers. Author keywords: Accreditation; Engineering education; Sustainable development; Students.

Introduction The past 50 years have been an age of prosperity for about one billion people on our planet. Better living conditions and hygiene, communication tools, and modes of transportation, combined with economic growth have helped people live better and longer lives. Various fields of science and technology, including engineering and medicine, have contributed to making the world a better place for about 10% of the world’s population. However, as remarked by Polak (2008), there is a need to consider the design (of solutions) for (or with) the other 90%. A question arises as to whether the models of human development and economic development used for the 10% should also be used for the other 90%, and if not, what models of development are more appropriate? Another question is how should science, technology, and engineering adapt to address the sustainable and human development issues for the vast majority of the world’s population? These questions are extremely relevant since the economic development and technical tools that have provided 10% of the population with longer life expectancy and unlimited material wealth have not always been free of unintended social, psychological, and environmental consequences. Over the past 1

Doctoral Student, Dept. of Education in Science and Technology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel (corresponding author). E-mail: [email protected] 2 Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel; and UNESCO Chair, Sustainable Engineering for Developing Communities. 3 Professor, Dept. of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, Univ. of Colorado, 428 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0428. 4 Associate Professor, Dept. of Education in Technology and Science, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel. Note. This manuscript was submitted on December 26, 2012; approved on June 4, 2013; published online on June 8, 2013. Discussion period open until March 10, 2014; separate discussions must be submitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education & Practice, © ASCE, ISSN 1052-3928/05013001(11)/ $25.00. © ASCE

20 years, sustainability and related concepts that emphasize the interaction between society, the environment, and economic growth have become part of the discussion regarding human development. The concept of sustainable development (SD), combined with the concept of sustainable human development (SHD), contributes to securing healthy, productive, and meaningful lives for all. The engineering profession has a critical role to play in the making of a sustainable, equitable, and peaceful world. One of the next great challenges for the science, technology, and engineering (STE) professions is to contribute to the relief of the many challenges afflicting developing communities worldwide by providing knowledge, resources, and appropriate and sustainable solutions. Although rarely thought to be, STE, like economics, health, and other disciplines, needs to be seen as an integral part of development activities. If engineering and science are critical to human development, how should engineers and scientists be educated to address global issues? This paper describes a unique service-learning course designed to introduce students to sustainable human development through a combination of classroom, laboratory, and fieldwork exercises. The course was developed and taught by two civil engineering researchers (second and third authors) who collaborated with two environmental education researchers who were seeking models for education for sustainable development (ESD) in higher education (first and fourth authors). The first author collected the data as explained later, and research questions were developed around the course by all four authors.

A New Epistemology of Engineering Practice and Education Surprisingly, the engineering profession has shown limited interest and competency in addressing human development issues for the developing world over the past 20 years. It is widely agreed upon that today’s engineers do not have the skills, tools, or the education to address the global problems that our planet is facing or will be facing within the next 20 years. The engineering profession has

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limitations, and there is a need to revisit its assumptions and guiding principles (Bugliarello 1991; Hollomon 1991). The challenge of creating a sustainable world demands a new and holistic look at the role of engineering in society. According to Bugliarello, providing value-free, quick, technical fixes to societal problems is part of the old mind-set and is no longer an option (Bugliarello 1991). For the past 20 years, several authors have questioned whether the dominant models of engineering education and practice have kept up with what society demands of engineers as we enter into a more globalized world. Hollomon (1991), Bugliarello (1991), and various authors in the fields of industrial ecology, sustainability sciences, and earth systems engineering concluded that the engineering profession has limitations and that there is a need to revisit its assumptions and guiding principles. A new epistemology of engineering practice and education is needed—one that is based on the idea of reflective and adaptive practice, system thinking, engagement, and a holistic approach to global problems. This new form of engineering education and practice must be designed to cover a wide range of technical and nontechnical issues in order to train global citizen engineers and whole and well-rounded persons who are capable of operating in a multicultural world, and not solely as technical experts. A new mind-set must be born that acknowledges the breadth, complexity and the systemic nature of the problems at hand. The challenge of creating a sustainable world demands a new and holistic look at the role of engineering in society. Providing value-free, quick, technical fixes to societal problems is part of the old mind-set and is no longer an option (Bugliarello 1991).

Engineering Education in Development Today’s engineers need to be able to demonstrate a high level of adaptation and flexibility in order to address more global problems in a dynamic changing environment where multidisciplinary approaches are the norm; there is a need to create global engineers to address global problems. Acknowledging this need has been articulated in several national and international documents and conferences, such as the Barcelona Declaration (EESD 2004), and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) learning outcomes. The Barcelona Declaration provides a unique set of recommendations for engineering for sustainable development and encompasses human development as well. It includes recommendations for engineering understanding and acting to promote the solutions for social and environmental issues, for example, • Understand how their work interacts with society and the environment, locally and globally, in order to identify potential challenges, risks, and impacts; • Understand the contribution of their work in different cultural, social, and political contexts and take those differences into account; and • Apply a holistic and systemic approach to solving problems and to moving beyond the tradition of breaking reality down into disconnected parts. It suggests recommendations for educational institutions as well: • Have an integrated approach to knowledge, attitudes, skills, and values in teaching; • Promote multidisciplinary teamwork; and • Strengthen systemic thinking with a holistic approach. In the United States, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and professional organizations, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), have been spearheading major changes in engineering practice and education. © ASCE

These groups recognize that the traditional engineering method, largely based on education in the engineering sciences and mathematics applied to artificially well-defined and closed problems, is no longer adequate in preparing young people to enter the world and deal with the complex problems our society faces (Downey et al. 2006). ABET outcomes (2012) and the ASCE Body of Knowledge (2008) criteria have been designed to overcome those limitations. The following ABET (2012) outcomes (under Criterion 3) are particularly relevant to engineering education for sustainable development (EESD): • An ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability; • An ability to function on multidisciplinary teams; • An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility; • An ability to communicate effectively; • A broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context; and • An ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice. The second edition of the ASCE Body of Knowledge (2008) offers in-depth criteria relevant to civil engineering for development, all of which require critical-thinking skills such as solving problems, analyzing impacts of actions, evaluating designs, solutions, and decisions, and so forth. According to UNESCO (2007), education for sustainable development (ESD) deals with the well-being of all three realms of sustainability: environment, society, and economy; promotes lifelong learning; engages formal, nonformal, and informal education; addresses content; takes into account context, global issues, and local priorities; builds civil capacity for community-based decision making; promotes social tolerance and environmental stewardship; develops an adaptable workforce; and promotes a reasonable quality of life. In addition, ESD advocates a variety of pedagogical techniques that promote participatory learning and higher-order thinking skills. Even though expected learning outcomes in engineering education are described in similar ways by many scholars, there is a critical need to address which teaching practices would promote the aforementioned competencies most effectively (Chau 2007; Shuman et al. 2005; Terenzini et al. 2001) while integrating these competencies into crowed curricula. This paper focuses on this question by studying service learning—a unique way of teaching and learning. The following three sections suggest a theoretical framework that ties the three themes central to this study: transformative sustainability learning, significant learning experiences, and service learning

Transformative Sustainability Learning A transformative learning process is a process of change in a particular frame of reference (Mezirow 1997). Frames of reference in this context are structures of assumptions through which our experiences can be understood, structures that encompass cognitive, conative, and emotional components, and include habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. A change in them promotes a change in the way new knowledge and experiences are constructed and interpreted. Because education for sustainable development deals with holistic change in knowledge, values, and action, many see it as a transformative learning process that should include

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individuals and educational institutions (Orr 1992; Sterling 2005; Wals and Corcoran 2006). Sipos et al. (2008) couple transformative learning with education for sustainability (EfS), and call this kind of learning transformative sustainability learning (TSL). They argue that in order for a transformative change to occur among students, the teaching process should engage heads-on, hands-on, and hearts-on activities that would promote cognitive, applied, and affective learning outcomes (Sipos et al. 2008). They claim that an integration of the three domains—cognitive, affective, and psychomotor—will affect behavior, which according to them is the ultimate goal of transformative learning. Following this theoretical framework, they suggest that courses of ESD in higher education should be assessed through an integrative perspective of the three domains, rather than be focused on the cognitive domain, as is usually done. Another process that is crucial for transformative learning to occur is a critical reflection of the students’ assumptions, which can lead to significant personal transformations (Mezirow 1997).

Service Learning Service learning (SL) is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development. Reflection and reciprocity are key concepts of service learning. Thoughtful reflection on the service process is explicitly designed to foster learning and development. Reciprocity between the server and the person or group being served is seen as an essential component, and both sides are seen as learners and help determine what the service task will be (Jacoby 1996). The SL programs are explicitly structured to promote learning about the broader social issues behind the need for which the service is responding to (Jacoby 1996), a fact that makes SL a teaching practice that takes into account context, global issues, and local priorities. Carefully designed SL can lead to profound learning and developmental outcomes for students and is considered a powerful educational and social intervention tool (McEwen 1996). SL enhances many learning outcomes that relate to effective citizenship: positive attitudes toward community engagement, self-efficacy, an understanding of social issues, skills for community action, and abilities necessary to deal with complex, ill-structured problems (Eyler 2002). For engineering students, SL offers a compelling environment in which to meet learning objectives, such as ABET’s criteria, that may be difficult to integrate into traditional courses (Oakes et al. 2002). It also provides opportunities to incorporate real-world experiences into the curriculum while providing a valuable service to communities, and it is a way to effectively integrate the learning of multiple outcomes into one comprehensive, educational experience (Shuman et al. 2005). In light of all these advantages, in practice SL has not yet been integrated into engineering curriculum, causing the field to lag behind many other disciplines (Oakes et al. 2002). In order for more engineering programs to implement SL, creative strategies for implementation must be developed, and challenges such as the pressure SL puts on already-packed programs must be addressed (Dukhan et al. 2008). In the past decade, there has been an increased interest in using SL in engineering as a tool to prepare students for the challenges they will meet in the real world, but due to a scarcity in literature that addresses engineering SL and the lack of reflective or pedagogical analysis, SL in engineering is still considered a novelty (Dukhan et al. 2008). © ASCE

Service Learning and Education for Sustainability Many essential elements of service learning are considered essential characteristics of ESD. These elements include the reciprocity with community, the integration of local needs with more global considerations, the importance given to developing social awareness, and the experiential nature of learning. As a learning activity that integrates the learning of real problems, problem solving, experiential learning, and dealing with social and global issues, it seems that SL is suitable practice in EfS in higher education in general and in engineering education in particular. Yet, limited research literature deals with SL courses in the context of ESD, and none of the studies found deal with the students’ experience. This study aims to fill this gap, and raise the reader’s awareness of the advantage of service learning as a means to teach sustainability in engineering education.

Significant Learning Experiences One of the major interests of ESD researchers is understanding the development of environmental concern and the motivation to take an active role in promoting sustainable development. Studies of significant life experience are central in this field. These studies focus on formative influences that are recalled by people whose lives demonstrate environmental concern (Chawla 1999). The rationale behind these studies is that if educators understand the type of experiences that motivate responsible environmental behavior, they would be able to foster the development of an informed and active citizenry (Chawla 1999; Hsu 2009). In such studies, the participants are usually asked about significant experiences from childhood through adulthood. Formal education in general and higher education in particular, have varied effects on the development of outcomes such as environmental awareness, environmental sensitivity, and activism; in some of the studies it had little effect and in others moderate effect (Chawla 1998, 1999; Palmer 1998). Apparently, in a life-span perspective, the learning experiences in higher education years are less meaningful and formative compared to childhood experiences. Yet, if the wish is to promote the quality of ESD in higher education and its effectiveness in promoting action competence and motivation to promote SD, such research should focus on learning activities in higher education as well, a goal that the authors aimed to achieve in this study.

Research Goal The aim of this study was to study how an academic engineering course that integrated sustainability issues and service learning was experienced by the students, and how they perceived their own learning in the course. Presented is an international interdisciplinary engineering summer course that was designed as SL for engineers. The course focused on sustainability issues, employed multiple teaching methods, and offered a variety of learning experiences. The following research questions were addressed: 1. What were the students’ reported learning outcomes, and did they match the course objectives? 2. What learning experiences were perceived as significant in promoting personal and professional development?

Course Description The course Engineering for Developing Communities, offered by the International School of Engineering of a leading Israeli

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university, was taught twice in the 2010 and 2011 summer semesters. This paper focuses on the 2011 summer course. The four-week course was taught for 4 h per day in English and involved instructors from various disciplines: two civil engineers (second and third authors), a medical doctor, an archeologist, and an anthropologist. The course included an important field segment in which participants and staff were divided into three teams, each assigned to a Bedouin village in which they worked over the four-week period of the course. The concept of the fieldwork was to have the participants apply their newly gained tools to real-world, complex problems in a real community. The course was designed to address, in operative terms, the ABET and Barcelona Declaration criteria outlined in the previous section of this paper. Its objectives were to raise awareness of social and environmental issues, and of professional ethics, and to transform students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes concerning the course themes. Specifically, the course was developed in order to • Give an international experience to the students; • Combine different learning experiences through classroom, hands-on lab, and field implementation work; • Instill leadership qualities; • Provide students opportunities to work in heterogeneous, multidisciplinary groups; • Introduce students to concepts of participatory community appraisal and capacity building and provide the experience to implement these concepts in a real community; • Have students interact and work within communities and with populations of completely different origins and different capacities with which they are familiar; • Provide students with an opportunity to experience all aspects of engineering such as problem identification, assessment, design, implementation, and monitoring; and • Demonstrate how engineering problems are complex and not always well defined, that they can be solved in more than one way, and that they often require working effectively with people who think differently (including engineers and nonengineers) and have different cultural backgrounds.

Content and Teaching Methods The course was developed to include a combination of classroom studies, laboratory/workshop hands-on activities, and fieldwork. The academic backbone of the course was based upon the curriculum taught (by the third author) at the University of Colorado, Boulder, through the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities (MCEDC). Lectures focused on global concepts such as the state of the world community, the dimensions of poverty, community participatory appraisal, capacity and vulnerability analysis, the burden of disease, project design and management, monitoring and evaluation, and reflective practice. These topics were supplemented with concepts of sustainable human development, decision-making theory, and teamwork in situations of high uncertainty and complexity. In addition, the course included reading material, museum visits on the political reality of the Bedouin community in Israel, and traditional Bedouin culture and development. Appropriate technologies were discussed in both the classroom and the laboratory simultaneously. Students were introduced to the basics of solar energy, wind energy, fuel briquettes, biogas production, and water quality testing. The crux of the course was in the integration of classroom, laboratory, and field segments. Prior to the first day of classes, students were asked to complete an online Meyer-Briggs personality test. Group dynamics were © ASCE

cultivated by breaking the class into clusters of similar type personality groups (e.g., extraverts/introverts) which fostered a discussion of the pros and cons of their own personality types, as well as their thoughts about working with opposite personality types from their own. Staff also participated in this activity. Based on the personality test results and the instructors’ impressions, three uniformly heterogeneous teams were arranged and an attempt was made to have an equal number of males/females, Israeli/international, extraverts/ introverts, left-brain/right-brain students in each group. The three groups were then assigned an individual Bedouin village and a group instructor/mentor.

Service Characteristics The implementation aspects of the course were carried out in three Bedouin villages situated in the Northern Negev desert of Israel. Preparatory work in the villages had been carried out by one course instructor prior to the course. The Bedouin population of the Northern Negev lives in an area that deals daily with very difficult political, cultural, and economic realities. Although it is not the objective of this paper to describe these realities, they were addressed with the students, as it was critical for them to comprehend and understand the situations they would be working with in order to provide context for their field experience. A short description of each of the villages which participated in the project is given below: • Qasr aSir is 5 km north of a city called Dimona. Qasr aSir, population 4,000, recently was recognized as a permanent village by the Israeli ministry of the interior. The students had access to the entire village and were introduced to the village by the lead contact, the vice principal of the local middle school. The village is currently going through a design process in collaboration with Israeli statutory authorities. • Kochle is just north of highway 31 in Northern Negev. Students in this group worked with a group of five brothers and their extended families, a population of approximately 100 people. Our contact in Kochle was an English teacher at the district elementary school. The families of Kochle hold a deed to their lands, and they are currently in a state of status quo opposite authorities. • A Sira is south of highway 31 next to the Nevatim Air Force Base. The village of A Sira is an unrecognized Bedouin village. The village is home to 57 families, totaling about 500 people. Our contact in A Sira was a physics teacher at a district high school. In the past, a home in the village was destroyed by authorities. Each group of students was responsible for conducting the appraisal of a community using participatory action research methods (Caldwell 2002). Throughout the period of the course, the participants developed and applied strategies to gather as much information as possible in the form of primary and secondary data. Information was gathered from as many different primary sources as possible such as schoolchildren, teachers, and in some cases from health-care givers. Each week of the course, two full days were set aside for students to spend time meeting and interviewing people of the village, mapping the village, and investigating the resources and capacities of the community as a whole. Evenings were spent compiling data and focusing on identifying any missing information. As expected, students were met with an array of complexities that required teamwork and patience. For example, in some of the villages, the females do not speak with males outside of the family circle; complicating matters even more, communications required a combination of Hebrew and Arabic. Acquiring input from the women of the village was

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considered extremely important for many aspects of data collection; health, education, resources, energy, hygiene, and the balance of family chores and household economics were key factors needed for information gathering. Therefore, the students needed to devise questioning systems for the women of the villages which were much different than the systems used for the men. The students learned the importance of flexibility when gathering information as well as the many differences that exist in cultural mores and gender roles. From the data collected, each group was charged with conducting a causal analysis. For every problem identified within the village, root causes and consequences were outlined. The results of the causal analysis were presented in the form of a problem tree. Some groups tried building the problem trees together with their stakeholders. In other cases, problem trees were developed separately and presented to the community stakeholders. Upon completion of the problem trees, solutions were proposed, and the negative causes and effects of each problem identified were replaced by positive roots and positive outcomes. From that exercise, an action plan was developed in order to tackle each problem. The action plan consisted of several alternatives that were ranked according to community requirements and capacity to implement the action plan. Main products of the course include the presentations the students had to give to the members of each Bedouin community. The presentations included a description of the data collected, the problem tree analysis, a capacity analysis, and a set of alternative strategies to approach these challenges. The presentations were made in Hebrew and Arabic and delivered in advance to the course instructors. In each of the three communities, steps were taken in order to advance the development of one or more of the action plan alternatives. In order to ensure continuity with the Bedouin villages and to address students’ concerns about perceptions of “using the villages as a test site for the sake of a project,” the local Engineers Without Borders (EWB-Israel) chapter stepped in and committed to implement some of the alternatives that were found to be compatible with the wishes of the communities. Following the summer 2011 course, solar units were installed in two of the three villages. Wind-speed meters were also installed in order to monitor the wind regimes. A full-scale wind turbine, which was constructed by the 2011 summer course students, was installed subsequently in one of the villages, and the local EWB chapter has continued working with the villages to identify additional needs and projects. Reflection processes were integrated throughout the course and helped to facilitate the students’ learning process in regard to understanding the meaning of their actions when working in the villages. Through the reflection process, the students had an opportunity to reassess the designs and solutions they developed for the villages. The reflection was conducted in three formats: (1) supervised discussions within the teams with one of the course staff members; (2) course discussions; and (3) feedback from stakeholders in the Bedouin villages in the form of feedback from their presentations. The students were graded individually based on participation in discussion groups and laboratory sessions. Each group was then graded based on the final presentation that addressed their perspective of the village and was given to their village stakeholders and contacts.

Method A mixed-method approach that incorporated qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis was used (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004; Morgan 2007) in order to address the following two research questions: © ASCE

1. What were the students’ reported learning outcomes, and did they match the course objectives? 2. What learning experiences were perceived as significant in promoting personal and professional development? This approach suited the complex teaching and learning of the course, and allowed for identification of general patterns, as well as a deeper analysis of the learning processes and their outcomes.

Participants Twenty-five undergraduate university students in their second through fourth years participated in the course: 9 females and 16 males; 11 from Israel and the others from North America (11), South Africa (1), Australia (1), and Palestine (1). The average age was 23. The students were affiliated with various engineering programs (civil, environmental, mechanical, aeronautical, industrial, and electrical) and with physics and architecture programs.

Data Collection Data were collected from students through semiopen questionnaires that were distributed at the beginning of the course, at the end of the course, and six months after the course (see the appendix). In this paper, only the postcourse and the delayed-post questionnaires are addressed. A total of 25 (100%) students responded to the postcourse questionnaire, and 20 (80%) students responded to the delayed-post questionnaire. The precourse and postcourse questionnaires were distributed in class and took 20 min to complete. The delayed-post questionnaire was distributed electronically by Google Docs. The questionnaire was composed of the following parts: demographics, perceived learning outcomes, and significant learning experiences. Students were not asked to identify themselves. Secret identification codes were used for each questionnaire which allowed for anonymity but allowed the authors to pair the postcourse and delayed-post questionnaires. Interest was not in assessing students’ performance but rather in how students viewed their learning, and therefore the questionnaires focused on students’ perceptions of learning outcomes. The literature in environmental education and ESD points to several possible learning outcomes in the cognitive, social, and affective domains, including acquiring skills and motivation to act in responsible and environmental ways (Hungerford and Volk 1990; Kastenhofer et al. 2010; Kollmuss and Agyerman 2002). Openended questions enabled the respondents to refer to various outcomes that they acknowledged, and these answers provided a broader, unbiased perception from the students. Three questions in the postcourse questionnaire focused on students’ perceptions of learning outcomes. These questions provided data regarding learning experiences that were perceived as significant to students’ personal and professional development and on the ways the course affected them. The delayed-post questionnaire included a fourth question that asked whether the course had an impact on the student since it ended and in what way. Content analysis was carried out based on the literature on learning outcomes in environmental education and ESD, and the following learning categories were defined: • Theoretical knowledge: knowledge of the environmental, economic, and social issues related to sustainability (Svanström et al. 2008). • Awareness: environmental awareness in the professional literature is an ill-structured construct. Following Kollmuss and Agyerman (2002), our working definition has two components: understanding the impact actions have on the environment and

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an emotional aspect of care. In the case of ESD, the same logic can be obtained, and therefore awareness is defined as knowledge and care about the mutual impacts of economic development, social development, and the natural environment. • Engineering skills: all the practical, technical, and professional skills that have to do with engineering design (ABET 2012). • Higher-order thinking skills: the development of higher-order thinking skills is highly appreciated in the field of science education, and there is a huge body of knowledge regarding how to develop and assess these skills. Higher-order thinking skills are needed for coping with the complexity of sustainability problems and finding balance between different dimensions (Svanström et al. 2008) • Attitudes: defined as the enduring positive or negative feeling about some person, object, or issue (Bell 1998). Two categories of attitudes were defined: general attitudes and professional attitudes. The general attitudes category (hereafter referred to as attitudes) are attitudes toward sustainability in general. Professional attitudes are attitudes toward one’s own profession. The division into two different categories resulted from the large number of statements that expressed attitudes toward one’s profession. • Motivation: the motivation category is similar to what Hungerford and Volk (1990) defined as “intention to act,” which Kollmuss and Agyerman (2002) further defined as commitment and willingness to take action. Because students expressed motivation in various ways, it was productive to break up this category into three subcategories: professional motivation (that expressed acting within a professional field), motivation to learn, and motivation to promote SD in life in general, which was defined as motivation to promote SD. • Behavior: many scholars perceive behavior as the ultimate goal of learning in general, and in the field of sustainable education and environmental education in particular (Adams 2007; Bell 1998). Stern (2000) suggests that significant environmental behavior can be classified into five different categories and distinguishes between private-sphere behavior, behavior in organizations (professional behavior), and activism. Similarly, the category of behavior was addressed such that it can be further classified into different types. Yet, because the participants in the study are students, the behavior-related responses were associated with making decisions about their studies with respect to EfS. • Affective outcomes with respect to the course: some of the students addressed affective outcomes with respect to learning experiences that did not fit any of the aforementioned categories; therefore, this category was added. Hereafter it will be defined as affective course outcomes. Statements about perceived learning outcomes and about significant learning experiences were found in the answers to all three questions. Some students described more than one learning outcome, and some answers fit more than one type of learning outcome. Due to this answering pattern, categorizing student responses was carried out for all the accumulated statements, rather than for each answer separately. If students gave different answers to one question, each answer was classified into the appropriate category. In cases where students gave more than one response that matched a specific category, all these responses were counted as one. Analysis of the three identical questions allowed for the comparison of the responses to the postcourse and to the delayed-post questionnaires. Analysis of the additional question was carried out separately. A panel of experts in science education and education for sustainability were recruited to criticize the analysis and to achieve © ASCE

interrater reliability through peer debriefing (Lincoln and Guba 1985), which resulted in some refinements made to the classification of statements.

Findings Students enrolled in the course for various reasons, the expectation to gain knowledge on how to help developing communities and acquire practical knowledge for this purpose was a major motive for almost all.

Learning Outcomes and Their Alignment with Course Objectives Overall, 60 statements concerning learning outcomes in the three questions in the postcourse questionnaire were given, with an average of 2.4 statements per student. In the delayed-post questionnaire, the students provided 49 statements regarding learning outcomes, making an average of 2.5 statements per student. The statements were classified into eleven categories, nine of them appeared in the responses to both questionnaires, and two categories (higher-order thinking and behavior) appeared only in the delayed-post questionnaire. Table 1 presents examples of student’s statements and demonstrates classification of the eleven categories. Fig. 1 presents a comparison of the learning outcomes as reported in the postcourse and in the delayed-post questionnaire. The vertical axis shows the average statements per students, and the horizontal axis presents the various learning outcomes. The students expressed many types of learning outcomes in their answers, both after the course ended and six months after. Two categories of learning outcomes appeared only in the delayed-post questionnaire: acquisition of higher-order skills and changing behavior. The statements that described behavior were focused on decisions about learning and changing their major area of study to environmental studies. In addition to the two new categories, one other difference between the two questionnaires was noticed in the categories dealing with professional orientation: in the delayed-post questionnaire, students expressed more professional attitudes and less professional motivation than in the postcourse questionnaire. A fourth question in the delayed-post questionnaire focused on the impact of the course over time. A majority of the students (17 out of 20) answered that the course had positively affected them. Almost all of the students remarked that they had continued to think about the course, and they described how they discussed the course with their peers. Responses such as “it has made me interested in development in low-income and low-resource communities” or “I felt much more confident in my career choice and wiser in my world view while talking to peers,” or “I think back on this course and have fond memories,” were common among responses. Six of the students described an actual action they took: joining an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) chapter in their university, and adopting sustainability principles in their personal life and in their community. Nine students (45%) described some sort of behavior that was targeted at promoting sustainable development in the answers to all four questions in the delayed-post questionnaire. The students developed their previously expressed motivations into real actions, as they continued to recall the course contents and to process their learning experiences. The nature of the responses to the delayedpost questionnaire led to the conclusion that the learning experience taken away from the course had an ongoing effect on the students. They did not only remember it but were personally transformed by

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Table 1. Learning Outcomes Reported in the Postcourse Questionnaire

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Number

Category

1

Theoretical knowledge

2

Awareness

3 4

Engineering skills Higher-order skills

5

General attitudes

6

Professional attitudes

7

Professional motivation

8

Motivation to learn

9 10 11

Motivation to promote SD Affective course outcomes Behavior

Students’ quotes It touched many subjects that I have never heard about before. Not only technically but also theory about change and community analysis It has made me more aware of the options for all benefits of integrated sustainable land development solutions It gave me an insight of practical stuff like building turbines/biog It has made me think more outside the box in ways to help the community and the environment [It affected my] attitudes. Sustainability depends not just on technology but on mindset. Working in communities really helped develop the sustainable mindset Civil engineering isn’t just who can build biggest and safest building/roads etc. Rather, it must fit in place/sync with environment It has spread my interest in working with developing communities. I want to pursue this type of engineering as a career I am most definitely more motivated and wish to obtain the skill of being capable in constructing environmentally friendly solutions on my own It gave me motivation to help this kind of developing village I am glad I took part in this course, [it was an] awesome experience It has driven me to move toward environmental studies rather than structural design

Fig. 1. Distribution of learning outcomes at the course end and six months later

the experience. They continued negotiating the ideas discussed in the course among themselves and with others. Learning in the course yielded a change in the students’ ways of thinking and of doing things. The course learning outcomes were congruent with the staff’s objectives; students developed awareness of social and environmental issues and demonstrated concern about their duty as engineers in dealing with these issues. The fact that the most outstanding outcomes had to do with professional responsibility and ethics of engineers demonstrated that the course was successful in raising students’ awareness. The transformative nature of the students’ learning was evidenced by the combination of cognitive and affective outcomes in both postcourse and delayed-post questionnaires, and by the development of thoughts and actions that were reported in the delayed-post questionnaire, which were described earlier.

As shown, multiple learning experiences were reported by the students, and a few specific insights should be highlighted: • The course delivered 18 lectures, but only three were referenced by the students. One lecture focused on how to construct biogas solutions was given by a young expert working with this technology in developing communities. From the students’ responses, it seemed that his lecture was inspiring because of the exciting technology he described and because they could identify with the speaker. • The fieldwork was described as significant not only because the students enjoyed working outdoors, but because of several aspects of the visits with the communities such as the interactions with the people and with their leaders; learning how to do community analysis and implement it; and learning how to apply sustainable solutions for people’s needs. • Even after six months the students vividly remembered many of the experiences they had, specifically the fieldwork. • Social interactions and applying capacity analysis tools were indicated as one of the most important parts of the course by the course team, yet only a few students mentioned those components as contributing to a significant learning experience. This could be the result of having a variety of learning experiences that were more important to the students. • Part of the strong impact of the course should be associated with the uncommon employment of different learning experiences as indicated in the following students’ quotes:

Significant Learning Experiences The learning experiences perceived as significant to students’ development with respect to sustainable development are presented in Table 2. © ASCE

The hands on nature of the course and the aspect of really integrating civil engineering and technology into people’s lives and interacting with the Bedouin communities helped me learn how to deal with social issues. The course has shown me that technology and the role that engineers and the development of infrastructure play on the environment can drastically change the way people live, more than I had previously thought. I had a great time building the wind turbine and interviewing members of the Bedouin village. In the process I learned how to weld and cut metal, design and build power boxes, how and what questions to ask community members, and how to grasp every piece of information I noticed each day about the community. I also learned that I love to spend time with people in such communities—getting to know each person and their way of life.

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Table 2. Significant-Learning Experiences at the End of the Course and Six Months After: Distribution and Examples of Responses Number (%)

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Experience

Post

Delayed

Examples Personally, I was very motivated with biogas, I am very impressed how much it’s eco-friendly (P) The lectures on poverty and biogas : : : (D) Installing such environmentally friendly sources of energy such as solar and wind generated electricity made me realize how accessible it is (P) Actually building the wind turbine (D) Working in the Bedouin communities and thinking about their issues with respect to a specific community rather in an abstract or general sense (P) The meeting with the Bedouin community, the exposure to their culture and their difficulties (D) I have more motivation to deal with social issues compared to the beginning of the course because I met great people (which belong to developing communities) (P) Learning how to analyze and understand the problems that a community can face (D) —

Specific lectures

8 (31%)

7 (39%)

Hands-on experience

7 (27%)

3 (16.7%)

Fieldwork in Bedouin communities

7 (27%)

8 (33.3%)

Social interactions

4 (15%)

0

Learning and applying capacity analysis tool Total

0

2 (11%)

26 (100%)

18 (100%)

Note: D = delayed post; P = post.

Holistic Views Another way of looking at the course outcomes was to focus on the whole learning experience of each student. By doing so, one can understand the personal development of the student during and after the course. When looking at the answers of each student, it was noticed that almost all of the students perceived the course as a meaningful learning experience that promoted several learning outcomes. The following extended examples of students’ experiences illustrate the course impacts. A twenty-year-old American electrical engineering male student enrolled in the course since “it seemed like an excellent hands on experience that I have not yet seen elsewhere.” At the end of the course, he expressed motivation to learn more about the subjects and apply them. He was confident in his ability to do sustainable engineering design and stated the following:

his main focus was in reference to the skills he acquired, but in the delayed-post questionnaire, he expressed new ways of examining things that he attributed to the course. A twenty-year-old Israeli female mechanical engineering student enrolled in the course and stated the following: I am excited to learn about and help other people and want to see if EWB is something I want to be involved in in the future. Is their work actually beneficial to the communities they serve? Also, I would like a practical outlet for all I am learning. At the end of the course her expectations were fulfilled, and she described several learning outcomes: I have realized how difficult it is and how important it is to work in developing communities, how every detail needs to be considered for the greater project to work. Actually, building the wind turbine was a great experience for me. It was the first time I was involved in a complex hands-on engineering project. I learned a lot about practical engineering in a few different fields—things I knew nothing about. I am really excited to get involved in future projects like this. It also solidified some theoretical knowledge I had. I have more motivation now in my studies after I see such amazing practical applications.

By having a hands on opportunity and involving my major (learning) and how it can make others benefit greatly, I am more motivated to understand the material I learned and remember it. Installing/constructing such environmentally friendly sources of energy such as solar and wind generated electricity made me realize how accessible it is. I am most definitely more motivated and wish to obtain the skill of being capable of constructing environmentally friendly solutions on my own. Six months later, in his delayed-post questionnaire, he referenced strong memories of the course:

Six months later, she still felt that the course promoted her knowledge, and her motivation to be involved in this kind of project developed into action:

I could not be more proud of the developments in my field among alternate sources of energy. Merely analyzing the advantages and disadvantage of potential solutions really got me thinking. Sustainability is now a thought that I carry with me everywhere. It made me second-guess everything I do from a positive perspective i.e., thinking in the long term. I think about forming sustainable environments throughout the world.

[As a result of the course] I am more aware of issues and I now feel like I have a way to contribute. Actually building the wind turbine taught me how to combine skills from many different disciplines. I joined EWB and am starting to work on wind energy projects.

A close examination of the things he said at the course end, and then six months later, reveals that during that time he developed new insights he did not express earlier. When the course ended, © ASCE

Discussion The findings provide new and valuable information about the way a formal course that integrates service learning and sustainable

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development issues can affect students’ perceived learning outcomes and be considered a significant learning experience. The course has substantially contributed to the development of most of the students and yielded diverse learning outcomes. In addition, the findings give insight into the types of learning experiences viewed by the students as most significant in promoting personal and professional development with respect to sustainable development. In summarizing the course findings, the following ideas are discussed: (1) transformative sustainability learning; (2) significant learning experiences; and (3) integrating SL in engineering curricula as a way to incorporate sustainability ideas into the engineering curriculum and to promote multiple learning outcomes. 1. Transformative sustainability learning: in order for a transformative change to occur among students, the teaching process should engage heads-on, hands-on, and hearts-on activities that would promote cognitive, applied, and affective learning outcomes, and also include reflective activities (Mezirow 1997; Sipos et al. 2008). The course Engineering for Developing Communities referred to all these aspects. Head-on experiences were established through system thinking, lectures, and discussions; hands-on by building and designing solutions; and heartson through experiential activities in the communities and empowerment of the students. Reflective activities were incorporated in the course several times and promoted personal and group reflection processes. The findings confirmed that the course promoted transformative sustainability learning: the students reported on the development of various learning outcomes: cognitive, skills, and affective; the impact on the students’ thoughts and feelings and motivation continued long after the course ended, and in some cases have matured into actual action. These course outcomes are in line with the notion of multiple learning activities as a means to enhancing transformative learning, and point to possible ways other courses can yield similar outcomes through incorporating the three modes of learning: heads-on, hands-on, and hearts-on. 2. Significant learning experiences: as a whole, many of the course activities were recalled by the students as significant, and almost all students recalled at least one activity as significant. Most of the meaningful learning experiences associated with the course were the participatory, active, and collaborative learning. Furthermore, these learning activities were recalled by the students as important even six months after the course end. The finding further supports research on the advantages of participatory and active learning in promoting student learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM), and with arguments about the value of integrating socioscientific issues in science education as a means to promote student motivation and interest in their learning (Terenzini et al. 2001; Tal and Kedmi 2006; Tal et al. 2011; Sadler and Dawson 2012). However, most of these studies were held with K-12 students, while this study adds the higher education perspective. Teaching in higher education is commonly done through lectures (Moore 2005; Tsaushu et al. 2012), and studying teaching in higher education will add both theoretical and practical knowledge to the field. Previous research on significant life experiences in the field of ESD revealed that higher education usually is not recalled as significant in the development of environmental awareness, environmental sensitivity, and activism (Chawla 1998, 1999; Palmer 1998). Yet, previous studies regarding significant learning experiences focused on lifelong experiences rather than on (formal) higher education experiences. The finding of this study are promising with respect to the potential of active learning in an engineering course in promoting affective © ASCE

learning outcomes and in being meaningful for the students. The fact that the fieldwork and the hands-on activities in the course were viewed by the students as significant is congruent with previous findings that most significant school memories were associated with opportunities to take action, rather than with engaging in passive classroom learning (Chawla 1999). It can therefore be assumed that higher education experiences could be remembered as significant-learning experience only if they are designed as those mentioned previously. Studies that focus on significant learning experiences in higher education in the field of ESD are scarce, and more research should focus on this issue. As several teaching methods were offered throughout one course, their impact on one group of students and in one research setting was compared. Future studies could go back to these students a few years after their graduation and ask not only what courses in higher education were meaningful to their learning and development, but also what characterized those specific courses. 3. Use of SL in engineering curriculum as a way to integrate sustainability into the engineering curriculum and promote multiple learning outcomes: in recent years some initiatives have attempted to introduce SL projects into engineering education. These attempts are promising in that they will enhance ABET students’ outcomes as cited in criteria number 3 (Jamieson et al. 2001; Shuman et al. 2005). Yet, this practice is rather new in engineering education, and there is scarce literature and insufficient pedagogical analysis (Dukhan et al. 2008). Our study shows how SL can be used in an engineering course, and even how to incorporate ESD characteristics. The course focused on the social dimension of sustainable development, but there was much space to discuss environmental and economy issues, and for developing capacities to deal with real problems in an integrative manner; the students were instructed to look for the villages’ needs while at the same time discuss global issues and share problems people of developing communities face worldwide; and various pedagogies were used, it was interdisciplinary and built civil capacities for communitybased decision making and social tolerance, in congruence with ESD definitions and demands. Previous research indicated that SL in higher education can enhance many learning goals related to effective citizenship: interest in and positive attitudes toward community engagement, selfefficacy, commitment and understanding of social issues, skills for problem solving, and abilities necessary to deal with complex, “ill-structured” problems (Eyler 2002). Our research findings are in accordance with these previous findings and provide empirical evidence to the powerful effect that this educational practice has on students’ learning of multiple outcomes. Many scholars and coordinators of engineering programs look for effective ways to introduce ESD into the engineering curriculum, and this paper can be a practical contribution to the field as it presents a model of how ESD can be integrated into engineering education. Teaching the course during the summer semester (assuming that this is the only course that the students are enrolled in) has several benefits: it enables students from different departments and even from different institutions or countries to interact, and it enables the students to focus their attention on one course and not be pressured by other aspects of schooling

Conclusions and Implications Our basic assumption, which is supported by the professional literature, was that an engineering program should address current

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needs of diverse communities across the world, with caution, and respect to the environment and human societies. Many questions remain as to how formal engineering curricula and programs can reflect these demands, and the authors suggest that introducing service learning into the engineering curriculum is an effective way to address these challenges. Aligned with this finding, it is concluded that integrating service learning with other various teaching methods is effective in promoting students’ learning and their motivation to take part in active citizenry action that promotes sustainability. The SL can be implemented into a great variety of courses in engineering and at all levels. Given the powerful impact on the students identified in this study, suggestion is made that faculty in engineering departments search for ways to integrate this practice into the curriculum in their departments. Poverty exists everywhere; civil action is part of people’s life everywhere; professional help is valued by the underprivileged everywhere, but the type of involvement, its shape, and its duration can be varied. A course was studied that was designed as service learning with specific communities, in a specific region of the world. Many of its features and activities that were mentioned as significant learning experiences can be part of engineering courses in other places and contexts. Four main learning activities that were identified as significant can be used in other courses: 1. Fieldwork with communities: outreach activities, meeting real people who suffer from real problems, experiencing these problems, analyzing their roots, and designing suitable solutions. What was done with the Bedouin communities can be done with other marginalized communities in the world. Naturally, in order to do things well, special care should be given to building good relationships with leaders and/or stakeholders from the communities, and recruiting committed professional partners. 2. Social interactions and teamwork: social interactions occurred mainly through teamwork and direct interactions with the people from the communities. These experiences were part of the fieldwork, but they deserve special attention because they are not necessarily part of every service-learning course. Teamwork and other social interaction can be planned and implemented in various engineering courses, and certainly in courses that include service learning. In courses that deal with sustainable development issues, interdisciplinary teamwork has great potential in promoting understanding of the multiple aspects of the issues at hand, and to the development of effective solutions. Interactions with stakeholders of various communities have the potential to promote understanding of authentic problems and to make the issues more tangible. 3. Hands-on experiences: in the course Engineering for Developing Communities, workshops were an integral part of the course and served to equip the students with skills and knowledge they could use in the design of solutions for the Bedouin communities. Hands-on experiences could be an addition to many courses and many fields of knowledge in engineering education and are certainly essential for the implementation of EESD. 4. Finally, the reflective activities were an important part of the learning activities in the course. Although they were not pointed out by the students as a significant learning experience, and although the learning outcomes were not compared to other courses that did not include such activities, it is thought that they promoted students’ learning. The reflective activities raised awareness of certain aspects of the data that were collected in the fieldwork, provided each student’s insights on his/her own experiences, and deepened the students’ © ASCE

learning and commitment. In engineering education, where much learning focuses on numerical and technical aspects, reflection can be very positive. Its application is quite simple and depends mainly on the instructor’s willingness.

Research Limitations This case study focused on one course, and therefore the conclusions should be viewed accordingly. From the participants’ answers to the precourse questionnaire, it was learned that most of the students had interest in social and/or environmental issues prior to enrolling in the course. This did not rule out the great impact the course had on participants, but a question remains on how learning experiences would affect students who are less aware and less interested in social, environmental, and sustainable development issues. Answering this question is not easy, it requires studying compulsory courses that deal with similar content and apply similar teaching practices. Unfortunately, such courses are not easy to find. Therefore, studying the ways similar courses can contribute to the development of students who are less aware of social, environmental, and sustainable development issues remains a challenge for future research.

Appendix. Postcourse and Delayed-Post Questionnaires Postcourse Questionnaire Dear Student: This questionnaire is for our research on education for sustainable development (ESD) in higher education institutions. Responding will take approximately 20 minutes. All the information required is anonymously given, and it is given only for the purpose of this study. We appreciate your collaboration. 1. General Information Six first digits of your telephone number: __________ Age: __ Sex: f\m Mother tongue ___________ Department _____________ Affiliation (your home university): ________________ 2. Has this course affected your perception of the profession/field you are studying? If so, how? _____________________________________________ 3. Was there any particular learning experience during the course that you recall as significant to your personal/professional development (Considering your knowledge/attitudes/skills/ motivation of dealing with the social/environmental issue)? _____________________________________________ 4. In what way has this learning experience affected you (knowledge/attitudes/skills/motivation, etc.)? _____________________________________________ 5. Comments: _____________________________________________ Additional Question in the Delayed-Post Questionnaire Whether and in what way(s) has the course affected your thoughts, conversations, or actions since its end?

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