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It is important that engineers are educated to consider sustainability in their work. Thermodynamics is a fundamental course required in several engineering majors that has a natural connection to sustainability topics (e.g., energy and limits on efficiency). This work examined how sustainability was included in university-level engineering thermodynamics courses, based on 18 peer-reviewed papers that described Scholarship of Teaching and Learning studies. This review found that environmental issues were included in 15 courses, social issues in 9 courses, and economic issues in 5. There were 11 papers that included topics related to one or more of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with 8 of the 17 SDGs represented by one or more papers. The learning outcomes from the courses provided many examples of cognitive outcomes at all six levels of Bloom's taxonomy. In contrast, affective domain outcomes were generally not explicit. Methods of integrating sustainability topics included mathematical examples, labs, projects, service-learning, application-based learning, simulation tools, and book reviews. These examples should inspire instructors to foster sociotechnical mindsets toward engineering, which are a key to educating engineers who value sustainability and who will advocate for its importance in engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explored the extent that working engineers were satisfied with their ability to help or serve people and/or society through their jobs. Over 450 engineering graduates responded to an online survey, including alumni recently transitioning to the workforce from 16 U.S. institutions and professional volunteers with Engineers Without Borders-U.S.A. Only 18% of the respondents currently working in engineering jobs had some level of dissatisfaction with helping others through their job; this differed by job sector and discipline but not gender or between recent alumni and service-active engineers. Forty per cent cited dissatisfaction with service aspects of their work as a contributing factor for leaving an engineering job. A few seemed to have left engineering careers due to dissatisfaction with their ability to help others. The results point to the importance of aligning personal goals for helping people/society with engineering careers; employers facilitating these connections may reap benefits in employee retention.

Students must be taught to understand the ethical issues associated with engineering and technology, which includes microethics and macroethics. This research examined the influence of cultural environment by comparing ethics-related education outcomes between educators in (1) the United States, (2) non-US Anglo, and (3) Western European countries who teach engineering students. In an increasingly globalised world where companies and projects draw from talent across countries, it is important to understand how different cultures educate future engineers about their ethical responsibilities. Survey results revealed that a majority of educators in all three groups viewed undergraduate and postgraduate education on ethics as insufficient. A higher percentage of non-US Anglo and Western European educators taught sustainability and environmental issues in their courses compared to US respondents. US educators taught codes of ethics, ethics in design, and safety more than those in Western Europe. Open-ended responses illuminated challenges and opportunities to improve ethics education.

This study examined self, peer, and instructor ratings of leadership behaviors in four areas: collaboration, creativity, organization/control, and competition for 98 students in one civil engineering capstone design course. There was no significant difference between ratings of students based on gender identification within or across all three rater groups. However, peer ratings for all four leadership behaviors for underrepresented race/ethnicity minorities (URM) were lower than for non-URM students. Instructor ratings were lower for international students than for domestic students. Even with low sample sizes, these results warrant further research on implicit bias in leadership ratings within engineering education, with a special focus on the bias against URM and international students.

This research characterized faculty perceptions about the role of cocurricular activities in educating civil engineering students about ethics and/or the societal impacts of engineering (ESI). Among all survey respondents--those who mentored cocurricular activities and those who did not--41% believed that undergraduate students in their program learned about ESI via an engineering professional society, an engineering service group, or other cocurricular activity. In contrast, nearly all of the advisors of cocurricular activities (including research and design competitions) indicated that students learned about one or more among 18 specific ESI topics via the activity. Presentations, discussions, design projects, and working with a community were thought to impact students' ethical development. Cocurricular activities have the potential for significant contributions to students' ESI education; however, elective participation may limit their widespread impact.

This research strives to catalyze a more extensive integration of sustainability topics into mechanical engineering (ME) courses. The process through which higher education instructors choose to integrate sustainability topics into their courses was conceptualized using diffusion of innovation theory. The research explored two questions: (1) What factors were influential to front runners (innovators or early adopters) for sustainability integration in undergraduate courses taken by ME students? (2) What factors could spur non-adopters to integrate sustainability into their courses? The study included a survey (with 53 respondents who taught sustainability and 14 respondents who did not teach sustainability), 10 interviews with innovators and early adopters, and a focus group of 5 participants. The results were explored primarily from the perspective of meeting the needs of instructors (the target users). Peer-to-peer interactions were found to be important across all user groups. Practices that would help motivate later adopters include prepared curriculum- and university- or department-based support in the form of mission statements, training, mandatory sustainability inclusion, and a sustainability office to provide support. Diffusion of innovation theory provides insights into which strategies are likely to be most effective in expanding the number of faculty members who integrate sustainability topics into their courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The development of social responsibility is important for educating holistic engineers, able to work across social and cultural boundaries to solve complex social issues. A way is needed to measure effective interventions for increasing social responsibility. Purpose/Hypothesis: This article describes the Engineering Professional Responsibility Assessment (EPRA) instrument and provides evidence of its usability, validity, and reliability. The EPRA measures students' social responsibility attitudes and operationalizes the professional social responsibility development model, which describes the development of personal and professional social responsibility in engineers. The EPRA is intended to be used by educators to assess curricular interventions aimed at changing students' views of social responsibility. Design/Method: The EPRA was developed in an iterative manner, using five different survey administrations with adjustments made to the instrument between each. Data from the final survey with 1,000 student responses were used to develop evidence of validity through expert feedback, structural equation modeling, multidimensional item response theory, and convergent evidence of validity and evidence of reliability using ordinal alpha. Results: Evidence of validity and reliability indicates the appropriateness of the EPRA to measure social responsibility attitudes in engineering students. Conclusions: The evidence of reliability and validity shows that the EPRA may be a useful tool to assess engineering student views of social responsibility, changes in those views over time, and the effectiveness of educational interventions intended to affect these attitudes.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to design an assessment instrument to evaluate students' attitudes toward sustainable engineering (SE). Factors that impact SE beliefs could then be explored. Design/methodology/approach: Using the definition of sustainability from the Brundtland report and expectancy value theory, students' sentiment toward SE was evaluated using items to assess SE self-efficacy, SE value and SE affect. The survey was distributed at three diverse universities with 515 responses from students ranging from first year through graduate studies in a variety of engineering majors. The survey instrument was validated using principal components analysis, and internal reliability was established via high Cronbach's alpha for each construct. Findings: Participation in more experiential, enriching learning experiences correlated to higher SE self-efficacy, value and affect. Extracurricular club involvement correlated with a lower self-efficacy but high SE value. Students who had participated in undergraduate research had a high SE self-efficacy, particularly in the environmental and social sub-scales. The students who participated in internships had high SE self-efficacy but lower SE affect. A greater number of volunteer hours correlated with increased SE affect. Female students possessed higher SE value and affect than male students, but self-efficacy was not significantly different. SE self-efficacy increased with academic rank. Originality/value: This is the first effort to measure engineering students' attitudes toward SE using the three sub-scales of expectancy value theory and assessing correlations in these attributes with students' participation in various learning experiences.

The high cost of surfactant enhanced aquifer remediation (SEAR) could be reduced if contaminants in the extracted surfactant flushing water could be biodegraded, and the surfactant reinjected. To test this concept, ex situ biotreatment using immobilized bacteria was simulated in laboratory columns. Nonionic surfactant solutions of 1,000-5,000 mg/L Tergitol NP-10 (TNP10) were flushed through contaminated soil collected from a wood-treatment site. The highest TNP10 dose increased the effluent concentrations of tetrachlorophenol (TeCP) and tetrachlorohydroquinone (TCHQ) by about 3 and 16 times, respectively. These wash solutions were then treated by the aerobic bacterium Sphingomonas chlorophenolica RA2 immobilized in polyurethane foam. The immobilized bacteria were capable of degrading pentachlorophenol, TeCP and TCHQ in soil flushing wastewater containing up to 4,900 mg/L TNP10. Surfactant sorption to the biotreatment columns occurred, but these losses decreased over time as the sorption capacity of the foam was exhausted. The results suggest that SEAR wastewater could be biotreated, thus enabling reinjection of the surfactant. CE Database subject headings: Soil treatment; Surface-active agents; Biodegradation; PCP; Wood preservatives; Biological treatment; Wastewater management.

Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the abiotic interactions of soybean oil (SoyOil) and chlorinated ethene (CE) nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs). The mixed NAPL density and interracial tension behaved ideally, as predicted by the volume ratio. The mixed NAPL viscosity increased exponentially from that of the pure CE to that of pure SoyOil as the volume fraction increased. The measured contact angle was highly variable and was unpredictable as a function of the volume composition of the mixed NAPL. The physical property effects indicate that the mobilization of residual CE NAPLs because of SoyOil injection is unlikely. Equilibrium dissolution of CEs from the NAPL mixtures behaved linearly as a function of the mole fraction. Dissolved SoyOil in simulated groundwater enhanced the dissolution of trichloroethene (TCE) during flow tests, increasing the effluent TCE concentration from 141 to 202 mg/L. The ready intermingling of the CE dense nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) and SoyOil indicate that such interactions may be significant at sites where vegetable oil is injected into DNAPL source areas to enhance in situ anaerobic bioremediation. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9372(2005)131:10(1447) CE Database subject headings: TCE; PCE; Physical properties; Nonaqueous phase liquids; Remedial action; Oils.

The biodegradation of propylene glycol (PG) and PG-based aircraft deicing fluid (ADF) at initial concentrations of 400-100,000 mg/L was investigated in saturated sand columns operated under nitrogen-limited conditions that are expected occur in the environment. PG biodegradation resulted in the accumulation of 0.4-1.4 mg volatile solids/g sand, which decreased the hydraulic conductivity of the sand by 23-99.8%. At loading up to 0.27 mg ADF or PG/g sand/d, greater than 99% PG removal and 88% soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal were achieved. At higher loading, removal efficiency decreased but the removal rate increased to 11.2 mg PG/g sand/day and up to 10.7 mg COD/g sand/day. As ADF or PG loading increased causing more nitrogen-limited conditions and likely a greater amount of PG fermentation, cell yields decreased and a greater fraction of incomplete mineralization of the ADF and PG were noted as measured by higher residual soluble COD. The results indicate that natural attenuation of PG in groundwater is likely to occur in association with potentially significant bioclogging. CE Database subject headings: Biodegradation; Hydraulic conductivity; Sand; Airports; Water pollution.

Biological activity in zones of chemical contamination changes the pore characteristics that control the flow of water and transport of dissolved chemicals in soils. To further the understanding of these processes, column experiments were performed to evaluate the effect of biomass growth on decane or naphthalene dissolved in simulated groundwater on the hydraulic conductivity and dispersivity of sand. The effect of grain size, groundwater flowrate, and nitrogen limitation were investigated. Given the low carbon loading resulting from the solubility of decane and naphthalene, sparse and discontinuous biomass growth reduced the hydraulic conductivity of the sand by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude after 35 to 63 days. This biogrowth initially increased dispersivity of the sand, but after longer periods of growth dispersivity, decreased to stable values near that of the clean sand. The results indicate that biogrowth can have significant effects in natural systems with low carbon loading and nitrogen availability, and should be taken into account when using models to predict contaminant transport in the field. DOE 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9372(2002)128:1(51) CE Database keywords: Hydrodynamics; Sand; Biofilm; Porous media; Hydraulic conductivity.

Subsurface spills of high-molecular weight, multicomponent, dense nonaqueous-phase liquids (DNAPLs) are intractable for remediation by conventional techniques. This paper introduces the concept of biostabilization of the DNAPL source region as a means of achieving risk reduction at DNAPL-contaminated sites. Successful biostabilization depends upon the interplay among dissolution, degradability, and toxicity of various DNAPL constituents, difficult to predict a priori for the mixture. Bench-scale screening tests are proposed for identifying those DNAPLs that are amenable to biostabilization. The screening protocols compare four criteria: (1) microbial activity; (2) composition of the DNAPL residue; (3) aqueous phase contaminant concentrations; and (4) aggregate aqueous phase toxicity--across unbiotreated controls and in mixed versus unmixed biometers. The unmixed system represents slow dissolution from DNAPL pools in the quiescent subsurface. The protocols are developed and evaluated with DNAPL coal tar in the first paper of this set (Part I). Unmixed coal tar biometers, characterized by slow mass transfer and low-level microbial activity, exhibited reduced, aqueous-phase contaminant concentrations and aggregate toxicity, as well as stable DNAPL composition, consistently indicating favorable potential for in situ biostabilization.

Aroclors are dense nonaqueous-phase liquids (DNAPLs) composed of polychlorinated biphenyls, which are common subsurface contaminants. Because complete remediation of Aroclor is very difficult, biostabilization may offer an alternative where risk reduction can be achieved without destruction of the DNAPL mass. The potential for aerobic in situ biostabilization of Aroclor 1242 was evaluated using laboratory protocols similar to those described in the companion paper. Total microbial concentrations increased and stabilized in both mixed and unmixed systems, while the respiring cells did not stabilize in either system. After 100 days, the DNAPL in mixed biometers was depleted in dichlorobiphenyls; the DNAPL composition in unmixed biometers did not change significantly. The total aqueous polychlorinated biphenyl concentration was lower in the unmixed than mixed biometers; both were below the predicted equilibrium concentration. After 100 days, the chronic toxicity of the aqueous phase to Cerodaphnia was greater in the biotreated systems than in the unbiotreated systems. The results indicate that aerobic microbiological activity may be insufficient to fully stabilize Aroclor in the subsurface, in contrast to the clear biostabilization potential of coal tar.

Curricular and co-curricular service programs are becoming more common in engineering education. For some students, these experiences align with preexisting desires to use engineering to help others; for others it instills these expectations for one's career. To date, there has been a lack of research on the long-term impacts of these service experiences on engineers' career pathways, including satisfaction with an ability to help others through one's career. A survey asked engineering alumni to describe characteristics of their most and least satisfying jobs with respect to an ability to help others or society. Results showed that for individuals in their first job since graduation, undergraduate collegiate service correlated with an ability to help others as a motivator for job selection, and graduate level collegiate service correlated with satisfaction with an ability to help others through one's job. For participants who had worked at more than one job, graduate service correlated with their least satisfying job with respect to helping others. The results point to the formative effect that service can have on career aspirations and perceptions, but also highlight the complexity of these issues and the need for more in-depth and nuanced assessments of the effects of collegiate experiences on post-collegiate pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]