A Foundational Design Experience in Conservation Technology: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to meeting Sustainable Development Goals

2022

Conference Paper

hi

Project-based courses allow students to apply techniques they have learned in their undergraduate engineering curriculum to real-world problems. While many students have demonstrated interest in working on humanitarian projects that address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), these projects typically require longer timelines than a single semester capstone course will allow. To encourage student participation in achieving the SDGs, we have created an interdisciplinary course that allows sophomore through senior-level undergraduate students to engage in utilizing human-wildlife centered design to work on projects that prevent extinction and promote healthy human-wildlife co-habitation. This field, known as Conservation Technology (CT), helps students 1) understand the complexities of solutions to the SDGs and the need for diverse perspectives, 2) find and apply international conservation guidelines, 3) develop teamwork and leadership skills by working on interdisciplinary teams, and 4) evaluate and assess conservation technology projects for multiple stakeholders and in the context of the SDGs. Students may take this course for several sequential semesters, partnering with more senior and junior students, allowing for long-term engagement in sustainability solutions. In the first half of the semester, we leverage more traditional pedagogical approaches, including formative assessments and in-class lectures on conservation, technology, and sustainability solutions. In the second half of the semester, we utilize peer, instructor, and expert reviews of the projects students work on to help them excel at successful and equitable conservation technology interventions. Through 9 formal interviews conducted with students, we discovered themes that students identified as most critical for engaging in conservation technology initiatives. These themes include 1) perspective given to students through in-person, active learning using the Dilemma, Issue, Question approach, 2) Independent learning of conservation technology background and theory during the beginning of the course, and 3) Hands-on learning and project-focused experiences in CT. To leverage engineers’ engagement in the SDGs, students needed half a semester of background information to allow for an adequate understanding of the complexities of humanitarian aid projects. This paper, discusses the course structure that will help leverage Sustainable Development Goals into engineering curricula and use Conservation Technology projects in the course as case studies for interdisciplinary learning.

@conference{Schulz22-ASEE22-ConTechThemes,
  title = {A Foundational Design Experience in Conservation Technology: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to meeting Sustainable Development Goals},
  author = {Schulz, Andrew and Shriver, Cassandra and Seleb, Benjamin and Greiner, Caroline and Hu, David and Moore, Roxanne and Zhang, Margaret and Jadali, Nima and Patka, Anika},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education},
  pages = {1--12},
  address = {Minneapolis, USA},
  month = jun,
  year = {2022},
  note = {Award for best paper},
  doi = {},
  url = {https://peer.asee.org/40887},
  month_numeric = {6}
}