ENVE 571: Environmental Life Cycle Assessment
This newly redesigned course explores sustainable engineering, circular economy, and environmental impacts and inequalities across product life cycles. Through project-based and active learning, students build critical thinking, systems thinking, and communication skills while completing a hands-on life cycle assessment project focused on circular strategies. The course features a modular structure with interactive lectures, readings, guest speakers, and continuous feedback to support deep, interdisciplinary learning.
AE 444: Building Envelope Systems
This course explores the technical, environmental, and social aspects of building envelope systems through a transdisciplinary lens. Students learn about high-performance materials, design strategies, life cycle impacts, and environmental justice, while developing collaboration and communication skills through active learning, case studies, field visits, and a final team project. Guest lectures and real-world assessments prepare students to design sustainable, adaptable envelopes that respond to complex challenges in the built environment.
Teaching Innovations
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ENVE 571 students learn from LCA practitioner and industry alumni
Shannon Belfield , Senior Project Manager at Sustainable Solutions and an alumna of the Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering at Drexel University, gave an engaging guest lecture to our ENVE 571 students earlier this week. She shared insights on a Life Cycle Assessment her company did for a circular economy program. Students appreciated learning from…
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AE 444 Students use AI-generated images to design the world’s WORST building envelope!
For the first week of my Architectural Engineering course about Building Envelope Systems, we talked about functions and performance aspects of the building envelope, from technical to environmental and sociocultural design considerations. We had a lot of fun with a 15-min class activity where I asked students to use AI to design the world’s worst…
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AE 444 Students visit a LEED Platinum building
Field trip day!! Had the pleasure to take my Building Envelope Systems students on a field trip to University Place 3.0, the first certified WELL Platinum and LEED Platinum lab building in the US! Thank you Marelisa Gibson, Chloe Bendistis, AIA, LEED AP, and the rest of the team at UPA | University Place Associates…
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Dr. Cruz Rios implements innovative double dice game to improve classroom engagement, learning, and creativity!
I feel energized! Today I tested an innovative teaching strategy I learned at Drexel’s Teaching and Learning Center in my Building Envelope Systems class at Drexel University College of Engineering.Here’s how it works: each team gets a double dice and a dry erase board (to keep score). A double dice has one number inside and…
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ENVE 571 students learn with guest lecture from environmental historian Jay Turner
Today I’ve witnessed the power of bringing different disciplines to the classroom, especially bridging engineering and social sciences to explore eye-opening perspectives. I had the pleasure of hosting Jay Turner as a guest lecturer in my environmental life cycle assessment class for engineers. Jay is an environmental historian who writes on policy and environmental politics…