Introducing a Sustainability Module to Civil Engineering Decision-Making Curriculum: A Students-as-Partners Design Plan

The architectural, engineering, and construction industry is undergoing an active transition towards sustainability practices. It is important to feature sustainability in current decision-making curriculum. This paper introduces a qualitative case study on course redesign, which takes a pedagogical planning process known as "students-as-partners (SaP)" through action research. The redesign has two overarching goals: (1) introducing knowledge and skills required for aligning decision-making with Sustainable Development Goals, within a module of a civil engineering decision-making course, and (2) developing working partnerships that bring together varied perspectives on how to best integrate the contents. A team containing an instructor and two students worked on the project, supported by a curriculum developer and three faculty peer mentors. A new module, including active learning activities (e.g., experimental learning), formative and summative learning assessments, and a teaching evaluation, was created. A semi-structured interview was performed to measure the impacts of the redesign project. The results show that the purposes of SaP are met. The students reported increased engagement and motivation for learning, and instructor is enabled to develop laser-focused contents. Takeaways were summarized as enablers for common SaP challenges. Limitations were identified, such as the selection of student participants and challenges on logistic communications.