Integrating Climate Change Into Engineering Education

Climate change is one of the major societal challenges of this century and students that graduate from engineering programs must be equipped and prepared to address this challenge.Addressing it will require broad societal changes with impacts that will reverberate through all engineering disciplines.Therefore, it is imperative that climate change and its associated impacts are integrated into engineering curriculum so that the future workforce will be ready.In civil engineering, the impacts will present challenges to the design and maintenance of critical infrastructure systems that support daily life.The key question then becomes "how do we prepare students for careers that will be dominated by climate change and the associated societal changes that it will generate?"Adjusting the curriculum to include climate change requires careful consideration of the impacts that it would have on the students and therefore the impacts it would have on society.For the desired impact, the undergraduate and graduate level will need different considerations based on the fact that the two students are in different stages of their careers.At the undergraduate level students are preparing for entry-level engineering jobs which will then lead to more senior engineering jobs through experience gains as they advance in their careers.Also at the undergraduate level, curriculum is aligned to ABET student outcomes With one of the key criteria being the preparation of students to become lifelong learners.With this in mind, climate change considerations can be integrated into the existing undergraduate curriculum in civil engineering such that the students that graduate are aware of the impacts that uncertainty in climate change will be having on critical infrastructure systems.At The Graduate level, students are trying to advance their careers through gains and experience in particular disciplines.It is at the graduate level that new courses added to the curriculum can better prepare students to able to analyze and advocate for solutions that combat uncertainty associated with climate change and its impacts effectively.For graduate students to be fully prepared to address climate change, they need to be equipped with skills in two main areas: (1) risk and resilience and (2) game theory.Skills in risk and resilience are necessary to be able to properly analyze and decide on solutions that minimize the risk that climate change will have on critical infrastructure systems.Skills in game theory are necessary to be able to navigate the complexity that climate change represents which creates a highly uncertain and entirely dependent upon the choices that are made today and into the future.The introduction of course modules was focused on climate change into a selection of the courses in the undergraduate curriculum of civil engineering fostering the growth of the mindset of students to be able to take on the daunting challenge of climate change.The introduction of new courses in risk and resilience and Game Theory at the graduate level is producing engineers with the capabilities to address the challenges of climate change in new ways.