Conference: Workshop on Mobilizing Our Universities for Education on Energy Use, Carbon Emissions, and Climate Change

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing and disseminating curricula for undergraduate education focused on carbon usage. Understanding and quantifying energy use is important for making effective changes in our daily energy use. This workshop will bring together the environmental engineering community to organize a concerted STEM education effort about energy use, carbon emissions, and environmental change. The environmental engineering community has taken on several grand challenges over the past century, beginning with wastewater treatment and sanitation, then moving into topics spanning water treatment and disinfection, cleanup of hazardous chemicals, and indoor and outdoor air pollution. The next challenge will be addressing the magnitude and impact of greenhouse gas emissions due to fossil fuel use and land use changes. Developing and disseminating teaching curricula on these topics will be addressed in the workshop. The conference will gather experts in carbon use along with faculty and instructors in environmental engineering to examine how energy use can be integrated into undergraduate STEM education. A series of presentations will begin with a review of existing programs, then will address critical elements such as environmental and climate justice, carbon sequestration, and sustainable climate solutions. Breakout groups are planned to engage participants in identifying next steps in their institutional contexts to incorporate carbon and energy use topics into undergraduate environmental engineering curricula and to prepare faculty and instructors for implementing curricular changes at their institutions. The NSF IUSE: EDU program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.