Examinando por Autor "Pearce, Annie R."

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    Ítem
    Service learning for sustainability : Ideals to practice
    (Universidad Iberoamericana León, 2016) Pearce, Annie R.; Manion, Will
    Community-based service learning is used in engineering and construction curricula to engage students in interesting, complex problems that benefit the community while developing competencies essential to professional practice. Service learning projects effectively expose students to issues otherwise difficult to teach, including critical resource constraints, tactics to overcome them, tradeoffs among possible solutions, systems integration, and organizational challenges of implementation. However, they are often underutilized due to the risks and challenges of integrating them into classes and managing student involvement. This paper explores the questions of what makes CBSL projects successful and the challenges faced by both faculty and students who participate in them. The findings are based on a literature analysis of challenges and a review of two service learning projects implemented by a conjoint senior level/graduate class on sustainable facility systems at Virginia Tech. Lessons learned are identified in three key areas: design as listening vs. design as inspiration, conflicting and unspoken objectives, and construction realities. Service learning projects offer a secure environment in which to learn about the challenges of construction, where the unexpected is an expected and valued part of learning. Through these experiences, students can better understand the tradeoffs required to pursue sustainability in capital projects and can better place sustainability objectives such as “minimize waste” and “reuse construction materials” in the context of what these objectives require in practice. These projects also offer benefits to clients in the community and afford the opportunity for civic engagement by students that may carry forward into their lives after graduation.
  • Miniatura
    Ítem
    The impact of socioeconomic context on achieving Leed Platinum facilities in developing and developed countries
    (Universidad Iberoamericana León, 2016) Langar, Sandeep; Pearce, Annie R.; Gay Alanís, Leon F.
    The United States (US) and India are two populous democratic nations that are leading contributors to global climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. To address these problems, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is one of the tools commonly utilized by the two nations to reduce negative environmental impacts of buildings. This research studied the ways in which LEED certified buildings offer social benefits to their surrounding communities in different socioeconomic contexts. For this study, two LEED Platinum Rated Buildings were purposively selected in the US and India, and technologies and strategies used to achieve the Platinum rating were identified. These technologies and strategies were classified based on social benefits offered to the surrounding community, and cases were compared to evaluate whether benefits varied between the two contexts. For the building located in the US, 26 out of 70, and for the building located in India, 18 out of 57 technologies and strategies were expected to offer social benefits to the surrounding community. For these cases, no significant difference was found in the proportion of potential societal benefits expected between case study projects in the developed vs. developing country. Future research should further explore and quantify the actual societal benefits achieved by certified buildings.