Exploring transdisciplinary education

Because wicked Sustainability Problems (WSPs) are complex, multi-scaled, value-laden, ill-structured, and difficult to address (for example see Lonngren et al., 2016), teams that include engineers and others with expert knowledge are needed to effectively manage WSPs relating to environmental stress and declining ecosystem health, including WSPs stemming from resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, and climate change. How do we educate engineers to successfully engage in such transdisciplinary teams? What is transdisciplinary education? This paper explores aspects of these questions. First, we review areas of education literature relevant to transdisciplinary teaching and learning, including frameworks such as “Threshold Concepts” (Meyer & Land, 2006) and “Empathic Thinking” (Walther et al., 2017), and pedagogies reported in the literature, including “Value Analysis”, and “Learning Communities” (McGregor, 2017). We introduce the design-based research methodology (DBR) as a framework for developing transdisciplinary education, and we offer a review of the engineering education literature relevant to transdisciplinary training. Next, a case study employing DBR is presented. This case, inspired by the work of Tejedor & Segalas (2018a) and others, extends the work presented by Morgan et al. (2018), which reports a novel sustainable development workshop experience for masters-level graduate students, organized and hosted by the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in the spring of 2017. A second workshop was deployed in June of 2018, during which students from a variety of backgrounds and institutions gathered in UPV to create locally relevant, sustainable, conceptual designs for the built environment. The DBR case study focuses on this 2nd workshop, during which survey, interview, and focus group data reflecting both the student and the facilitator experiences, were collected. An initial interpretation of this data is presented. This paper contributes to engineering education for sustainable development because it emphasizes a meta- framework which conceptualizes the development of transdisciplinary education experiences and which has the potential to enable faculty to reflect on and improve novel transdisciplinary experiences

Johnstown Vision 2025: A Resilience Framework

<p>A number of revitalization efforts have been either undertaken or proposed for Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a small post-industrial city located in Cambria County, approximately 75 miles east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Johnstown's Vision 2025 Governance Committee commissioned the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University to study the proposed initiatives and develop a commonly held set of priorities for the community. The Institute developed a resilience framework to direct Johnstown's next steps forward by meeting with community leaders, analyzing existing plans and conducting new research. This research has led to greater engagement of both community leaders and ordinary citizens in the remaking of Johnstown as a model of resilience.</p

East Liberty Circulation and Mobility Action Plan

<p>East Liberty, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, has seen major urban transformations since the mid-twentieth century. It was settled as a walkable neighborhood with short blocks, a continuous street grid, a commercial district, and good transit service. As the city lost businesses and residents to the suburbs in the 1960’s, the neighborhood experienced decline. It was inadvertently precipitated by a major urban renewal project that disrupted streets to create a highway-like ring road around the business district, destroyed over a thousand buildings to create large parking lots, and replaced hundreds of houses with subsidized high-rise apartment buildings. Forty years of disinvestment left the neighborhood with high rates of vacancy, neglect, and crime. </p> <p>Beginning with the Community Plan in 1999, East Liberty has been engaged in a multi-faceted community development effort, which has involved ongoing community-based planning. East Liberty Development, Inc. (ELDI), its non-profit community development organization, has worked with the local Chamber of Commerce and other community partners to bring back businesses, build mixed-income housing, and improve community amenities. Depressed property values have risen and crime rates have fallen. Private developers have started to invest in new commercial, residential, and mixed-use projects. </p> <p>With the marked increase in commercial activities and residential population, traffic and parking issues are becoming more critical. In fact, those issues are the highest priority of the community’s ongoing concerns for good circulation and mobility, which have been discussed since the planning process began in 1999. The most recent community plan update in 2011 reinforced the importance of safe and effective access throughout the neighborhood. Accordingly, East Liberty Development Inc. engaged the Remaking Cities Institute from Carnegie Mellon University (RCI) to study walkability and accessibility and Walker Parking Consultants to study parking, focusing primarily on the business district in East Liberty. </p

Pittsburgh International Airport Area Development Vision Plan

The object of this study is to provide proof-of-concept research for the development of a Pittsburgh Aerotropolis, focused on the Pittsburgh International Airport, including developable properties within thirty minutes driving time of the airport. An ‘”aerotropolis” is a planned and coordinated multi-modal freight and transportation complex that provides efficient, cost-effective, sustainable, and intermodal connectivity to a defined region of economic significance centered around a major airport. Speed and agility are its hallmarks. The ideal aerotropolis has close access to the four fundamental R’s of transportation: runways, roads, rail, and river. Pittsburgh is uniquely suited for the development of an aerotropolis in the eastern United States because the airport has excess landing capacity and is not landlocked. The goal of the Pittsburgh aerotropolis is to attract new development and jobs to the airport area from outside the region rather than to relocate existing development and jobs from within the region. MGB & Associates (MGB) was engaged by the Department of Economic Development (DED) of the County of Allegheny with participation of the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County and the Allegheny County Airport Authority. MGB brought on Aerotropolis Business Concepts and the Remaking Cities Institute as sub-consultants to provide market and urban design expertise.</p