| Grant to support new green project |  |
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| Written by Johnathan Silver, The Shorthorn senior staff | ||||
| Thursday, 27 August 2009 08:54 PM | ||||
Budget Summary2009-2010 YearSenior Personnel (Faculty Researchers) — $24,864 Graduate Students — $11,250 Employee Benefits — $8,584 Stipends — $6,000 Materials and Supplies — $1,000 Indirect Costs — $22,621 Year One Total: $74,319 2010-2011 Year Senior Personnel (Faculty Researchers) — $25,609 Graduate Students — $11,250 Employee Benefits — $8,808 Travel — $1,280 Stipends — $4,000 Materials and Supplies — $500 Publication Costs — $500 Indirect Costs — $23,734 Year Two Total: $75,681 Total Budget Costs: $150,000 Source: National Science Foundation Summary Proposal Budget The civil, electrical and industrial departments will mix sustainability concepts into sets of their undergraduate courses. Three or four required classes from each department will add environmental education using programs like PowerPoint for homework assignments, tests and discussion topics. They will then be downloaded and used in other classrooms. Funding came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, according to the award summary. NSF funding officially begins Sept. 1 and expires August 2011. “The focus this semester is to just get things ready to go,” said project director Melanie Sattler. From Introduction to Engineering to senior classes, sustainability issues will be addressed so that incoming students will be familiar with the subject throughout their undergraduate careers, Sattler said. “The curriculum is already packed,” she said. “We didn’t want to just add another course that students could just forget. If you have repeated exposure, it’ll sink in.” Sattler said the project would promote interactivity. One idea she had was creating games, like “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” designed with sustainability questions. Benjamin Afotey, an environmental engineering post-doctoral student, worked with Sattler on a past project that taught high school teachers how to teach their students parts of an engineering curriculum. The project, he and Sattler are working on now, is another way to get future college students interested in engineering, Afotey said. “Engineering courses are known to be a little intensive,” Afotey said. “The more that students get involved in the field the greater the chances of them addressing the problems that we are facing right now, like the environment.” Sattler will also work with researchers from other engineering departments. “We’re not going to do this for two years and quit,” she said. “We’d like to expand to different to departments and colleges. The engineers need to know this stuff, but so does everybody else.” Another component of the project will expand on engineering student internships. Sattler and her team will survey different companies and decide which ones have sustainability practices. Students would intern with the top five engineering companies, she said. Course materials used in classroom instruction will be sent to the Center for Sustainable Engineers, Sattler said. “This will contribute to the education of engineers who can design systems and technologies that have a small environmental footprint and are sustainable over the long term,” according to the National Science Foundation award summary. Views: 170 | E-mail
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