ENGR 350 is a Bacc Core class which explores the relationship between technology and sustainability. We cover the entire gauntlet of population trends, climate change, energy, water, food, agriculture, infrastructure, global nutrient cycles, the circular economy, and sustainability policy. Two major threads which run through the whole course are 1) the inevitable complexity in decision making ; and 2) the importance of having verifiable information from solid sources. The course typically has 80-100 students from all majors and all levels. We strongly encourage non-engineers to enroll, though the majority of the class usually ends up being an engineering major. ENGR 350 has been previously offered as both a traditional lecture course on campus as well as an online course, but this Fall will be Hybrid for the first time. The main motivation for bringing the course to the Hybrid format is to allow for more student discovery and exploration of facts. Much of the content is best digested at one’s own pace.
Class meeting time (once per week, 80 minutes) will be broken up into a 5-10 min micro-lecture (quick concepts or recap of current events) and a 45-60 minute team activity with recap discussion. Remaining time will be left for teams to work on their term project, which is a poster. The entire class will present their posters during Finals week.
Online, students will have approximately 3-5 hours of total activity. This is spread out among weekly readings and quizzes (1-2 h), biweekly written assignments (1-2 h), video lectures (<20 min), and online Class Participation activities (30 min). In addition, students are expected to put ~10 hours into their final poster. The online content is designed to give students the proper context so they can contribute in a meaningful way to the class activities and discussions.
