Embedding Engineering Ethics in Introductory Engineering Courses using Stand-Alone Learning Modules

Ethics is a core principle of any service profession and in particular the engineering profession for the direct impact it has on human life and the environment. However, many engineering degree curricula rely on general education requirements (GER) to introduce and teach ethics to engineering students. More often than not engineering students take ethics-based courses in their junior year or later. Also, in many cases, such GER courses teach ethics based on fundamental theory and students cannot always connect it to engineering practice easily. To address this issue, many engineering course instructors have successfully introduced ethics-based learning modules in their courses, including introductory first-year courses. The authors have developed and taught an introduction to engineering design course to students in the general engineering program. The General Engineering program serves undecided and underprepared students. The authors have continuously upgraded and updated the course based on feedback and lessons learned. This paper presents a summary of various ways the authors have explored to teach engineering ethics to first-year students through a stand-alone module. Some of the successful modules include townhall style presentations, ethics debates, and more recently breakout sessions in response to the switch to remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The paper will provide information on how to run these modules as well as the pros and cons of each of the methods attempted. We hope to help instructors quickly design and implement such modules in their course as well as to get valuable feedback on improving such modules in our courses.