Sustaining sustainable design through ‘normalized sustainability’ in a first-year engineering course

In the fall of 2007, Purdue University began integrating sustainable design topics into ourIntroduction to Engineering Problem Solving and Computer Tools course which our first-yearengineering students complete prior to advancing to their specific engineering disciplinaryprograms. In the Spring of 2008 we began assigning a six-week design project related toSustainable Design. The students work in teams of three-to-four students to consider their livingspaces and how they might make those spaces more sustainable. In this paper, we present anoverview of the educational activities, including the material that is presented to students and moredetails on the design project. Additionally, we present an analysis of some of the students’ finalprojects. We present three cases which represent different student responses. This work willcontribute to what we as a design education community understand about first-year engineeringstudents’ ability to engage with this material.