ENVISION as an Educational Resource for Equipping Water Resources and Environmental Engineering Students to Implement Sustainable Practices

Abstract Submission: ENVISION serves as an essential resource for stakeholders in infrastructure, facilitating the development of projects that emphasize sustainability, resilience, and equity. Its applications in evaluating civil and environmental engineering projects and assessing their compliance with sustainability standards from the planning phase through to implementation offer immediate advantages for both the industry and society. Its significance extends to civil and environmental engineering students, who gain a comprehensive understanding of sustainability principles from an engineering perspective, yielding substantial long-term advantages. By utilizing, ENVISION as a foundational framework, students are equipped to design sustainable engineering projects from the beginning, contributing to the creation of a more sustainable society. This study examines how ENVISION principles can be integrated into the curricula for environmental engineering and water resources management, along with the outcomes of such integration. The introduction of ENVISION occurs in the first course of the senior design sequence, where students explore various aspects of sustainability, including the Sustainable Development Goals, sustainability rating systems, and ENVISION framework. As part of their coursework, students sign up with the Institute of Sustainable Infrastructure and analyze a successful ENVISION project. In the following senior design course, students evaluate their capstone projects through the ENVISION framework, ensuring that each final report includes an assessment based on the five ENVISION categories and its 64 indicators. This approach helps students pinpoint areas for design enhancement. The integration of sustainability, life cycle analysis, and environmental impact considerations is crucial for capstone design projects in an ABET-accredited environmental engineering program, positioning ENVISION as a significant contributor to engineering education. Additionally, the principles of ENVISION can be adapted or expanded in research initiatives to refine the definition of sustainability within the fields of engineering, as well as agricultural and water resources management research. The presentation includes data collected over five years.

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