Undergraduate Level Hands-on Ecological Engineering Course with Semester-Long Project and Laboratory Exercises

Our society currently faces many environmental challenges such as natural resources depletion, pollution of soil, water and air, waste disposal, and climate change. To best solve environmental challenges, society needs graduates ready to enter workforce with understanding of natural processes and ability to incorporate these processes into traditional solutions. Therefore, a new course in Ecological Engineering and Science (EES) was introduced at NCA&T State University to teach students how to incorporate nature and lessons learned from nature to solve the environmental problems and ensure environment sustainability. However, student lacked adequate background and preparation in EES and data science. Thus, an effort was made to immerge students in Biological Engineering and Environmental Science to experiential learning by developing laboratory exercises and semester long project-based teaching materials. The project designed laboratory exercises and hands-on learning to teach ecological engineering skills and to prepare students for important skills including leadership, teamwork, and communication through the course projects. A semester-long project on wetland design as well as a module on data science and several laboratory exercises on bioretention basin, wetlands, physico-chemical processes, green roof, etc. were developed and implemented. The students' performance in the project steadily improved each year. The grade for the course increased each year and was higher than the baseline year of 2019. Therefore, the evidences and positive student comments in the course assessment indicated enhanced student interest and learning due to the modification and implementation of the course materials.