Renewable Energy Project

Dwayne Breger, a civil and environmental engineer at Lafayette College, invited junior and senior engineering, biology, and environmental science students to apply to be on an interdisciplinary team to design a project that would make use of farmland owned by Lafayette College in a way that supports the college mission. Twelve students were selected for the project: two each from civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and Bachelor of Arts in engineering, plus three biology majors and one in geology and environmental geosciences. These students had minors in such areas as economics and business, environmental science, chemistry, government and law. The result of the project was a promising design for a biomass farm that could provide an alternative, renewable resource for the campus steam plant.

This can be described as a service-learning project. Duane Breger regards projects such as this as providing important opportunities for students to involve themselves in work that contributes to restructuring our energy use toward sustainable resources. Of course, there are many other kinds of useful collaborative projects that students could undertake. Discuss how such collaborative projects might contribute to students learning about the ethical dimensions of engineering practice.

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© 1997 National Society of Professional Engineers
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