Illustrating Environmental Complexities Using a Course on Environmental Effects of Civil Aviation

Reducing the environmental impact of civil aircraft involves a number of problems that require a careful balancing of a number of often-conflicting considerations.The field is therefore one that can be used to expose engineering students to complex real-world environmental problems that involve making difficult decisions in arriving at an acceptable solution.In this paper such a course that is intended to introduce students from all engineering disciplines to multi-faceted environmental problems is described.This course involves student discussions and student reports and examples of the type of topics that are considered for these purposes are described.