A hands-on approach to green design in an introductory engineering class

Few engineering schools offer students an opportunity to learn about the environmental implications of engineering design until late in the curriculum, if at all. However, such implications are becoming increasingly important and complex. Here, the authors describe how they have successfully implemented a hands-on group project for the first-year engineering education course which acquaints students with the concepts of green design. The objectives of the project were to reach students the basic ideas of life cycle analysis and environmentally conscious decision making and to encourage them to think about how products are designed. To examine the effectiveness of this project, a detailed survey was given to the students after the completion of the project. Overall, the project allowed students to discover for themselves the challenges of designing a product to be environmentally benign.