Training Teachers to integrate a Sustainability Assessment for Green Building and Retrofitting Project into a K-12 Classroom

We present a collaborative research process for building an Industrial Engineering (IE) analytics process to train non-engineering K-12 teachers to conduct sustainability assessment in green building.One important goal of this engineering experience is for these teachers to bring research into their classrooms.Buildings play a vital role in society, and the construction industry is one of the largest consumers of natural resources.Sustainability assessment of building design must analyze a variety of decision variables, both qualitative and quantitative, and must address the three pillars of people, planet, and prosperity, corresponding to social, environmental, and economic performance objectives.Our IE analytics process enables K-12 teachers to perform meaningful research without overwhelming them with technical components outside of their backgrounds and in a way that could be translated to the K-12 classroom.This work is part of a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Teachers project (EEC-2055705), and our IE analytics process is used to study a tiny home and a primary school.