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Sustainability: Opportunities for Teaching Old Concepts via New Problems

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REWAS 2016

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Abstract

The theoretical and methodological foundations of the sciences and technologies are essential to the removal of barriers to achieving sustainable systems. The teachings of these concepts still lie in traditional academic disciplines such as engineering, science, and mathematics. This structure can often manifest significant barriers to progress in tackling challenging sustainability issues due to an absence of a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary, systems approach. This work will explore approaches for using current sustainability issues and problems to introduce both systems thinking and traditional discipline specific learning objectives to the classroom. Specific examples will be illustrated for a diverse set of courses and curriculum. Assessment shows an improved rate of achieving teaching outcomes compared to traditional curricular techniques.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Golisano Institute for Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology, 111 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY, 14623-5608, USA

    Gabrielle Gaustad

Authors
  1. Gabrielle Gaustad
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department Materials Engineering of KU Leuven, Belgium

    Bart Blanpain (full professor, co-director for the I/UCRC ‘Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling’, co-editor-in-chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy) (full professor, co-director for the I/UCRC ‘Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling’, co-editor-in-chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy)

  2. Umicore Precious Metals Refining, Hoboken, Belgium

    Christina Meskers (senior manager and leading the Market Intelligence and Business Research team) (senior manager and leading the Market Intelligence and Business Research team)

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, USA

    Elsa Olivetti (Thomas Lord Assistant Professor) (Thomas Lord Assistant Professor)

  4. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), USA

    Diran Apelian (Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering and Founding Director of the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) & Brajendra Mishra (Kenneth G. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Assoc. Director of the Metal Processing Institute, Director of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Resource Recovery & Recycling) (Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering and Founding Director of the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) &  (Kenneth G. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Assoc. Director of the Metal Processing Institute, Director of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Resource Recovery & Recycling)

  5. Purdue University, USA

    John Howarter (assistant professor in materials engineering) (assistant professor in materials engineering)

  6. SINTEF, Norway

    Anne Kvithyld (senior research scientist) (senior research scientist)

  7. IND LLC, USA

    Neale R. Neelameggham (‘The Guru’) (‘The Guru’)

  8. Argonne National Laboratory, USA

    Jeff Spangenberger (engineering specialist, Sr) (engineering specialist, Sr)

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© 2016 TMS (The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society)

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Gaustad, G. (2016). Sustainability: Opportunities for Teaching Old Concepts via New Problems. In: Kirchain, R.E., et al. REWAS 2016. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48768-7_42

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