EGB124 Engineering for the Environment

Unit Outline: Semester 2 2024, Gardens Point, Internal

Overview

Civil Engineers are at the forefront of designing and implementing changes to the environment to enhance community well-being. However, it is also critical to manage the consequential environmental impacts arising from these activities and to achieve sustainable development. Therefore, understanding the interconnectedness of environmental systems are critical for civil engineers. This includes a fundamental understanding of the concepts of resilience, pollution mitigation, community engagement, and meeting legislative, regulatory and professional practice requirements. Students will learn the fundamentals about how environmental systems function and challenges imposed on the environment as a result of human activities. This unit draws on your learnings in EGB101 Engineering Design and Professional Practice and integrates with EGB123 Civil Engineering Systems. Your learning in all units in your Civil Engineering major will benefit from the knowledge acquired from this unit.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Explain how earth processes influence civil engineering decision making using an environmental systems approach at an introduced level.
2. Analyse environmental impacts and potential mitigations in civil engineering problem solving at an introduced level.
3. Assess environmental impacts in a civil engineering study of a development proposal at an introduced level.
4. Present the undertaking and results of a civil engineering desktop study at an introduced level.
5. Contribute to a civil engineering study, as a team member with pre-assigned tasks, at an introduced level.
6. Compose a technical report of a civil engineering study that adheres to a format at an introduced level.

Content

Learning Approaches

In this unit you can expect to experience the following timetabled activities:

• Formal lectures from experienced professional civil and environmental engineers to give you insight into knowledge, skills, and attributes. You have the opportunity to ask questions during these lectures.
• Tutorial classes will give you the opportunity to work collaboratively with your peers to solve problems and work on the group environmental impact assessment tasks. These will be facilitated by tutors and will provide an opportunity to test your understanding and gain feedback on your work.

These activities will be detailed by week of semester on the unit schedule. You can also expect to be provided with learning resources including video presentations and readings on the unit Canvas site, which you can access flexibly to complete your learning in this unit.

At the beginning of the unit, you will be made aware of the ways in which you can ask questions or seek clarification from the unit coordinator, lecturers and tutors.

You are expected to:

• Engage with timetabled learning activities on campus and ask questions.
• Engage with online resources outside of timetabled learning activities. These will be available on the unit Canvas site. You will receive regular email announcements regarding the release of these resources.
• Work in a group to complete a civil engineering project environmental impact assessment. While there will be time during timetabled tutorial classes, you will also need to undertake independent work outside of that time to complete assessment tasks, including for areas of individual responsibility.
• Prepare for learning activities according to the unit schedule, and follow up on any work not completed.
• Complete assessment tasks by working consistently throughout the semester and meeting the due dates that are published via the unit Canvas site.

This unit will also include content, case studies and examples of the ways in which the work of professional engineers connects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s status as First Nations owners of land and seas. This may include:

• partnership with Indigenous communities and Indigenous engineering businesses,
• connection with regulatory requirements such as the Cultural Heritage duty of care required under the Queensland Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2005, or
• engineering industry partners who have an organisational commitment through Reconciliation Actions Plans which bring responsibilities to engineers working with them.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

During tutorial classes, you will share your formative ideas for your environmental impact assessment and you will receive feedback from your tutor. You are encouraged to view your group as a learning community and to share and discuss emergent ideas in the engineering for the environment process and your understandings of civil engineering professional practice. Each assessment submission will be graded against criteria and standards that will be shared with you at the beginning of semester through Assessment Task Descriptions and Marking Rubrics. Marked assessment will include feedback given by the markers against the criteria.

Assessment

Overview

Assessment in this unit has been designed to give you the opportunity to show your learning against the unit learning outcomes. You will work in a group to prepare and submit three assessments related to engineering for the environment during the semester, deploying work practices that align to civil engineering professional practice (such as project management, socio-cultural perspectives). You will be expected to work together with your group members and independently to make individual contributions to the assessments. 

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Design of venue layout

You will provide preliminary client advice on the key features of the proposed development and the management of critical issues such as stormwater flow and traffic that you would expect to encounter at the  site during the construction of the envisaged development. You will present your findings to a panel of tutors in the form of a viva.

Assessment: Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies

You will identify the key impacts associated with civil construction and propose measures to avoid or mitigate these impacts by applying the fundamentals concepts delivered in lectures

Assessment: Client Report and Briefing

As a member of a consultancy team, using a brownfield site, you will evaluate the environment and social issues associated with the decommissioning and restoration of a development in an urban setting and recommend the strategies to be adopted. You will write a brief report detailing your recommendations and follow up with a presentation to the client.

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to engage in learning and assessment at QUT with honesty, transparency and fairness. Maintaining academic integrity means upholding these principles and demonstrating valuable professional capabilities based on ethical foundations.

Failure to maintain academic integrity can take many forms. It includes cheating in examinations, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, and submitting an assessment item completed by another person (e.g. contract cheating). It can also include providing your assessment to another entity, such as to a person or website.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Further details of QUT’s approach to academic integrity are outlined in the Academic integrity policy and the Student Code of Conduct. Breaching QUT’s Academic integrity policy is regarded as student misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Resources

Risk Assessment Statement

Standards/Competencies

This unit is designed to support your development of the following standards\competencies.

Engineers Australia Stage 1 Competency Standard for Professional Engineer

1: Knowledge and Skill Base

1. 
   Relates to: Design of venue layout, Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies
2. 
   Relates to: Design of venue layout
3. 
   Relates to: Design of venue layout
4. 
   Relates to: Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies, Client Report and Briefing

2: Engineering Application Ability

1. 
   Relates to: Design of venue layout, Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies, Client Report and Briefing
2. 
   Relates to: Design of venue layout, Client Report and Briefing

3: Professional and Personal Attributes

1. 
   Relates to: Client Report and Briefing
2. 
   Relates to: Design of venue layout, Client Report and Briefing
3. 
   Relates to: Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies
4. 
   Relates to: Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies, Client Report and Briefing
5. 
   Relates to: Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies, Client Report and Briefing

Course Learning Outcomes

EN01 Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)

1. Make decisions ethically within the social, cultural, and organisational contexts of professional engineering practice.
   Relates to: Client Report and Briefing
2. Engage stakeholders professionally and communicate the outcomes of your work effectively to expert and non-expert audiences using appropriate modes.
   Relates to: Design of venue layout
3. Display leadership, creativity, and initiative in both self-directed and collaborative contexts of professional engineering practice.
   Relates to: Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies, Client Report and Briefing
4. Engage with and apply regulatory requirements relating to safety, risk management, and sustainability in professional engineering practice.
   Relates to: Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies, Client Report and Briefing
5. Demonstrate coherent knowledge and skills of physical, mathematical, statistical, computer, and information sciences that are fundamental to professional engineering practice.
   Relates to: Design of venue layout, Report on the assessment of environmental impacts and potential mitigation strategies
6. Demonstrate a thorough understanding of one engineering discipline, its research directions, and its application in contemporary professional engineering practice.
   Relates to: Design of venue layout, Client Report and Briefing