Professor Susan Nesbit teaches in the Department of Civil Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Sciences at UBC. Her interests in sustainability and education inspire her to provide authentic, hands-on, learning experiences for her students often through community partnerships.
In the fall of 2016, she collaborated with the Open Case Studies Project to support her students in writing a case study about the UBC farm as a human ecosystem. Through this assignment, students in CIVL498:Environmental Stewardship in Engineering gained their first “real-world” experience in applying the ecosystem approach to conceptualize sustainable infrastructure designs.
Assignment Details
The assignment below was part of the course requirement for CIVL498: Environmental Stewardship in Engineering. In a flipped classroom learning environment involving on-line lessons, readings, pre-class assignments, and weekly seminars, students learned the theory and skills required to write a comprehensive case study of the UBC farm.
Upon completion, the case was “opened” through the addition of “layering perspectives” sections which invite scholars and students from other fields to build upon the original case study by providing insights through their respective lenses.