Assessment of Environmental Equity: Results of an Engineering Service-Learning Project

Harrisburg Area Community College offers a course called Design for Environment, Engineering 271, designed to teach about air emission, wastewater treatment, hazardous waste handling, and solid waste disposal. All team projects in the course involve engineering analyses with economic benefits as a consideration and social responsibility as a goal of each effort. Increased awareness of society and the environment has recently become a part of engineering and technology programs, because the environment figures significantly in the global community. Environmental impact is the product of three interrelated factors: (1) population, (2) gross domestic product per person, and (3) degree of environmental impact per unit of gross domestic product. The key to reducing environmental impact and moving toward a sustainable society is represented by the third factor: the degree to which technology is available to permit development without causing serious environmental stress and the degree to which such technology is utilized. What can be done toward environmental improvement is limited in part by sociopolitical considerations, and engineers and designers must be aware of such limits. [author]