Integrating the environmental engineering curriculum through crossdisciplinary studios

Traditional curricular approaches within and beyond engineering education tend to be fragmented, with opportunities for synthesis being predominately limited to freshmen and senior year design courses. In this paper, we are proposing a curricular model, the Synthesis and Design Studio, as an example implementation to combat the tendency towards fragmented curricula. The proposed approach attempts to negotiate the realities of fragmented curricula by providing an integrative learning component. The pedagogical features of an interdisciplinary studio with engineering and art students that was implemented in the Fall 2009 will be described. Preliminary analysis of student feedback indicates some integration of students' learning across different domains. Future research will include analysis and results from the case study and evaluation.