Sarah Goodman’s work is at the heart of Georgia Tech’s mission. As a lecturer in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, she works to equip future engineers with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed, one material at a time.

As a recipient of an Undergraduate Sustainability Education Innovation grant, Goodman received financial support to redesign MSE 2001 Principles and Applications of Engineering Materials using the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

These goals provide a blueprint for “peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” They tackle challenges like improving health and well-being, building sustainable communities, and fostering social and ecological resilience.

The Project

For Goodman, the course redesign was more than a short-term goal; it was a way for her to have a long-term impact on the world around her. Together with Lily Turaski, the course coordinator for MSE 2001, Goodman created assignments that challenged students to think critically about how the choices they make impact the planet.

“We wanted to highlight sustainability in our course in a way that didn’t silo it in one or two topics, but allowed us to touch on sustainability throughout the entire semester,” said Goodman. “Every engineer is going to be working with materials and of course they’re going to be thinking ‘Does this have the mechanical properties I want, and the electrical properties I want, and does the cost make sense?’ But we also want to put sustainability and ethics into the front of everyone’s mind as something that needs to be considered when you’re doing material selection.”

Thanks to the grant, Goodman was able to hire three undergraduate students to assist with the course redesign over the summer: Syona Gupta, Swayam Trivedi, and Laura Mae Killingsworth. “We spent a lot of time brainstorming! The topic of sustainability is so broad and there are so many great examples. Having not only my ideas and Lily’s ideas but also the ideas of three additional people on our team [helped us] think about what students would find interesting.”

Read the entire article on Georgia Tech's Center for Teaching and Learning website.