Translation of Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Mitigation and Pollution Control Research into Engineering Education

Research and coursework are often considered separate parts of the degree programs, due to which research advancements, particularly in non-traditional topics and emerging technologies, take a long time to trickle into the curriculum, engineering education, and workforce development training programs. This disconnect leads to a significant shortage of trained and experienced workforce when a major research breakthrough makes headway into industrial practices. Addressing this, our study advocates integrating such emerging research concepts coupled with active learning strategies, such as special topics or projects, into traditional engineering courses through simple enhancements to the syllabi. This paper outlines three case studies we implemented to integrate the topic of “Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Mitigation and Pollution Control” into undergraduate courses and summer research experiences. This paper discusses how these three activities were designed and implemented. The feedback and performance metrics from these interventions demonstrated the potential of our approach to enrich engineering education and bridge the gap between research and classroom learning.