In engineering education, there is a prioritization of microethics and an omission of macroethics. Although macroethics is particularly significant for civil engineering, in which decision making directly influences the quality of civil infrastructure, current educational practices in civil engineering do not reflect this importance. This case…

Computing technology is reshaping the way in which professionals in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries conduct their business. The execution of construction tasks is changing from traditional 2D to 3D building information modeling (BIM)-based concepts. The use of BIM is expanded and enriched by the introduction of advanced…

For the last seven years, an interdisciplinary course known as "Greener Solutions", offered by the University of California, Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, has brought together graduate students in chemistry, environmental health, and engineering to understand each other's disciplines, and to work together to develop safer…

Threshold concepts are transformative, integrative, and provocative; understanding these difficult concepts allows students to be capable of solving advanced problems. This investigation and evaluation of a metacognitive curricular approach explore variation in students' and teachers' discernment of structural complexity of concepts and its…

The sustainable development of an economy and a society cannot be realized without the help of modern geoscience. Engineering geology knowledge is necessary on a civil engineering construction site to ensure the construction work goes smoothly. This paper first discusses the importance of geoscience, especially the study of engineering geology.…

Over the past few years many universities worldwide have introduced a common first year for all engineering disciplines. This is despite the opinion of many academics that large classes have negative effects on the learning outcomes of first year students. The University of South Australia is also faced with low motivation amongst engineering…

This paper presents the structure of an undergraduate course entitled "programming techniques and the use of specialised software in structural engineering" which is offered to the fifth (final) year students of the Civil Engineering Department of Aristotle University Thessaloniki in Greece. The aim of this course is to demonstrate the…

This paper describes the design of the curriculum for a Master of Engineering programme in civil engineering at University College Dublin. The revised programme was established to meet the requirements of the Bologna process and this paper specifically considers the design of a new, second-cycle master's component of the programme. In addition to…

The primary role of a civil engineer is to serve the community; thus, it is essential that students understand the impact of engineering projects on, and the context of engineering projects within, society. One goal of an engineering capstone design course should be to mesh the technical knowledge of the discipline with an encompassing engineering…

Following a widespread national trend, in 1996, a new two-credit hour course titled "Introduction to Civil Engineering" was introduced at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC). The class has a one-hour lecture per week, and a two-hour lab or small group session. One reason for the introduction of this class was to provide earlier…

Describes a three-credit elective course at Notre Dame, Design of Environmental Health Control Systems, offered to senior civil engineering students and graduate students in health engineering. (CS)

In 1996, a comprehensive project was introduced in the first course of Reinforced Concrete Design, CVEG 4303 at the University of Arkansas. The primary purpose of this project was to highlight issues related to the construction of reinforced concrete elements. This semester-long project involves the design, fabrication, and testing of 8-foot long…

Describes a two-semester project course required of all seniors at West Virginia University in the Department of Civil Engineering which involves team effort and encompasses four major areas of civil engineering: structures, geotechnical, transportation, and soils. (CS)

This paper is a description of a college course in structural design, which in this case serves as the capstone of the program in Civil Engineering Technology at the College of Staten Island (New York). Fourteen weeks of class lecture topics, activities, and assignments are delineated. Coverage includes building codes, loads calculation,…

Flexible pavement materials exhibit complex mechanical behavior, in the sense, that they not only show stress and temperature dependency but also are sensitive to moisture conditions. This complex behavior presents a great challenge to the faculty in bringing across the level of complexity and providing the concepts needed to understand them. The…