Teaching

Philosophy:

Teaching represents an exciting and rewarding challenge to help inspire and guide the decision makers of tomorrow. A broad understanding of a wide variety of overlapping domains is crucial to understanding the modern world. We are passionate ‘systems thinkers’ with a strong desire to facilitate critical thinking and analysis in our students. To this end it is important to enable the development of problem-solving strategies. With even a very elementary understanding of basic physical principles we can enable people to be more informed consumers and citizens. We want to teach students to think in the language of systems and to pay attention to the full life cycle impacts of the products and services we employ.

You can find Dr. Carbajales-Dale's Teaching Philosophy here.


Courses:

EES 4860/6860: Environmental Sustainability

Topics include sustainable engineering and industrial ecology with emphasis on pollution prevention methods using source reduction, recycling assessments, treatment to reduce disposal, life-cycle assessment and design for the environment. Emphasizes case studies and project work. Students undertake a group project to conduct a life cycle assessment of an everyday product.

Preq: Junior standing in College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.

You can find the syllabus here.

Here is an example of a student project.

EES 8200: Environmental Systems Analysis

Topics include general systems theory; thermodynamics; process-based (bottom- up), environmental impact assessment (such as lifecycle assessment, LCA); economic input-output (top-down) LCA; hybrid, top-down–bottom-up methods; systems of environmental-economic accounts (SEEA). There will be an emphasis on project work.

You can find the syllabus here.

This paper grew out of a student project.

EES 8060: Process and Facility Design for Environmental Control Systems

Integration of unit operations into complex systems for treatment of industrial/domestic water and wastewater, contaminated groundwater or air, landfill leachate and toxic liquid wastes. Student teams design an integrated system for either water/wastewater or a hazardous/toxic waste. Offered fall semester only. Preq: EES 8030 or EES 8040.

Topics include multi-criteria decision analysis framework and evaluation of tradeoffs; engineering economics; environmental decision making; as well as project organization and report preparation.

You can find the syllabus here.


Study Aboard:

Dr. Carbajales-Dale co-directs the Sustainability in Spain study abroad program with his wife Patricia Carbajales-Dale. The program offers students the opportunity to take six credits in Environmental Sustainability and GIS for Sustainable Development in the context of sustainable technologies and practices in northern Spain.

The Navarra region is a global leader in sustainability, obtaining around three-quarters of their electricity from renewable resources. Students will learn via classroom instruction and by visiting sites, including energy (e.g. wind and solar farms) and other facilities, e.g. desalination. Students will understand the economic, environment and societal impacts of these technologies.

The courses will be delivered by professors from Clemson University and instructors from the region who are active in the industry and experts in their fields. The courses will take place at the facilities of the Engineering Association of Navarre which is located in the center of Pamplona and has modern classrooms with high-definition digital projector, multimedia interactive whiteboardss, video-recording facilities, and internet conferencing equipment.

Interested students can find more information here.


Creative Inquiry:

EES 4900:014: Sustainability Assessments

EES 4900:022: Industrial Assessments - Energy and resource efficiency audits

This project is dedicated to training students to help with Clemson's Industrial Assessment Center. Students learn how to conduct energy audits around campus and analyze potential efficiency projects which may be implemented by Clemson's Sustainable Energy Fund.

Students work in teams to identify, plan, implement, and then monitor energy efficiency projects. They then also track related sustainability metrics such as energy and greenhouse gas emission savings.

Students should expect to enroll in this project for at least 2 semesters.