Sustainable Construction Education Using Problem-Based Learning and Service Learning Pedagogies

Abstract

Incorporating the concepts of sustainable development in engineering education is becoming a necessity in order to prepare future professionals with the dynamic mindset and broad knowledge needed to effectively and efficiently solve the interdisciplinary challenges of the 21st century. To this end, utilizing the principles of active learning towards sustainable construction education leads to stronger learning outcomes and development for students. The objective is to enhance the undergraduate student skill-set that is required to make them more enabled, aligned, and supported to design, construct, and operate our infrastructure systems. In this paper, the authors provide the associated course development principles grounded in problem-based-learning (PBL) and service-learning (SL) pedagogies, course management strategy, as well as the educational and learning philosophies. To this end, the course PBL activities utilized interrelated and mutually supportive assignments and projects where the assigned problems were not created equally (i.e., varying in complexity and structuredness). Through the evolution of problem-based course activities, the students were engaged in a service-based assignment in relation to the LEED certification process for a new on-campus building. Also, the associated student work was shared with the project developers for potential usage, and resulted in a peer-reviewed journal paper that is forthcoming in the