EDUCATION
We are currently teaching a core course called Research Methods and Ethics for Sustainability, which we have enhanced significantly since we took over. We have also developed three graduate courses that did not exist previously: Life Cycle Assessment Methods and Tools; Green Building: Design, Construction, and Operation; and Efficiency: Resource Use and Behavioral Analysis.
We are currently developing two graduate courses: Sustainable Cities and Urban Mobility and Resilient and Sustainable Critical Infrastructure. We plan to submit those courses to the curriculum committees during this academic year and to begin teaching them next year. These courses are innovative electives of great relevance to the local and international audience.
Since We am working at a research-intensive university, each faculty member is only required to teach one course per semester. However, we teach two courses per semester, maintaining my specialty graduate courses alongside a core course on Research Methods and Ethics for Sustainability that is taught to an exceedingly high number of students. The sections below demonstrate my course descriptions, objectives, and student learning outcomes.
Our Philosophy
The lab offers a range of courses related to green building design, sustainable development, life cycle assessment, and more. These courses are designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to address contemporary sustainability challenges effectively.
At URBAN Lab, teaching is not just about imparting knowledge but also about continually exploring the world for new sustainable engineering examples and teaching techniques. The lab introduces fresh material into courses, provides formal pedagogical training, and instills a passion for sustainability in students.
URBAN Lab employs innovative teaching strategies such as the flipped classroom and blended learning to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes. By utilizing online platforms and applying Bloom's taxonomy, the lab ensures a dynamic and comprehensive learning experience for students.
The lab believes in the profound impact of buildings on society and aims to inspire students by integrating sustainability principles into building engineering education. Through real-world case studies, collaborative projects, and historical examples, students gain a holistic understanding of the links between buildings, energy, urban form, and environmental justice.
Online Experience - EdX Course
We developed an EdX course on Sustainability and Major Sport Events in collaboration with the World Cup 2022 organizing committee. The course explores five pillars—human, social, economic, governance, and environment—with a particular focus on the core principles of each pillar and the need to consider them in-context. Real-world examples are presented to further highlight the importance of these factors when planning and hosting a major sporting event. We have covered environmental sustainability with a focus on buildings and infrastructure. The Edx course was a direct reflection of my research, covering my five research pillars using real-world examples from the stadiums built for the World Cup 2022. The course attracted more than 500 learners in the first release and is now continuously available on the Edx platform. The course is one of two that qualify learners for the Sustainability & Major Sport Events Professional Certificate.
Dr. Ahmad M. Hasnah
President, HBKU
“Innovation is a key objective of HBKU, and this partnership with edX provides an innovative way of delivering previously unavailable higher education courses to people all over the world. We believe that there should be no barriers to learning and, through this online platform, we are transcending traditional methods of tuition as we embrace the future of education.”
Federico Addiechi
Head of Sustainability and Diversity, FIFA
“I recommend the ‘Sustainability and Major Sport Events’ professional certificate program for anyone involved in delivering a major sports event. Sustainability is a core success factor for any major event, and its implementation must be driven by individuals across a wide range of functions and organizations. Inspired by the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Sustainability Strategy, these courses provide an excellent introduction to the principles and implementation of sustainability within a major sport event, drawing heavily upon the experience and lessons learned by sustainability professionals working on the FIFA World Cup™ and other events.”
Courses
This course explores the uses of energy and other resources in human activities, the relative magnitudes of resource consumption and waste, and the technological, social, and economic factors that impact energy and resource efficiency and conservation.
Course Objectives
- To understand the way we measure and define efficiency.
- To explore human activities and the energy and resource consumption associated with them.
- Gain knowledge of case studies where significant improvements in efficiency have been made.
- Identify potential areas of opportunity for future energy and resource efficiency improvements.
- Understand the Jevron dilemma and how efficiency improvements alone will not improve global resource sustainability.
Student Learning Outcomes
- Trace and calculate the flows of energy (or material) through a process and determine its efficiency.
- Understand and convert different forms of energy units.
- Propose sound approaches to quantify and measure efficiency of a given system.
- Study and identify through the student project areas of potential improvement in energy or resource efficiency within Qatar.
- Discuss and debate approaches to ensuring resource conservation and efficiency and their holistic impacts on a sustainable outcome.
The built environment is a major source of environmental impact. This course teaches all major aspects of green building design, construction, and operation with life cycle thinking in order to reduce these impacts. All green building categories are covered: location and transportation, sustainable sites, energy and atmosphere, water efficiency, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. The United States Green Building Council’s LEED rating system is used to demonstrate one possible green rating system.
Course Objectives
The course aims to develop a strong foundation and understanding of green buildings with a deep appreciation for and understanding of how the built environment impacts global environmental issues. Students will learn the important systems of green buildings, explore the components of the USGBC LEED rating system, and design and analyze green buildings. Through the course, students will also develop strong communication and research abilities.
Student Learning Outcomes
- Describe the background and history of green buildings.
- Debate and compare the most significant green building rating and assessment systems.
- Explain the process of green building design and the ecological design concepts.
- Compare the impacts of green building categories on the overall impact of a given building design.
- Apply green building concepts to suggest improved processes and solutions during the construction and use phases of buildings.
- Analyze the overall environmental and economic benefits of green buildings.
- Design and conduct experiments as well as analyze and interpret data from a building’s energy, water, and materials consumption.
- Appreciate the broad education necessary and the multi-disciplinary teams’ functions to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global societal context.
The need for sustainable engineering fuels the development of novel tools and techniques for studying the behavior of industrial systems and their relationships with the biosphere and society. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an environmental modeling method that has become increasingly popular within business and academia for evaluating the environmental impacts of products or systems. LCAs consider impacts along the entire life cycle, from production to consumption and disposal, and generally provide quantitative information for a range of different environmental issues that inform decisions. This course enables students to develop a practical understanding of the intellectual foundation and standards of an LCA, common databases and software packages they require, and their application to products and systems. Process-based analysis models, input-output, and hybrid approaches are presented for life cycle assessment. This is a research-based course that is suitable for students interested in researching a particular topic in-depth.
Course Objectives
This course will introduce graduate students to this important and rapidly growing field. It will introduce the emerging principles of the LCA, provide insight into the nature of interaction between industrial and ecological systems. By the end of the course, students will have an awareness of analytical tools and resources for evaluating sustainability through a systems perspective. Knowledge of the LCA is essential for environmentally sound engineering decision making. The students will demonstrate the ability to perform applicable material or energy balances related to an LCA. The students will learn how to model sustainability engineering from a systems or process perspective with associated inputs and outputs.
Student Learning Outcomes
- Describe how the LCA is developing in the US and Europe in addition to how it can be adopted in Qatar and the Middle East.
- Describe the developing standards related to the LCA, like Product Category Rules (PCRs) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
- Become familiar with several LCA computer-based tools to perform an actual LCA project or study.
- Clearly communicate results related to research on sustainable engineering by presenting environmental quantitative analyses.
- Develop sustainable engineering solutions by applying methods and tools for the research of a specific system design.
- Demonstrate the ability to understand typical environmental impacts of the built environment by calculating associated impact category factors.
- Discuss, debate, and critically evaluate existing and new methods to quantify the environmental performance of a product or system.
The course prepares students to perform graduate-level research. It introduces quantitative and qualitative methods for the critical exploration of research; the location, summarizing, and critiquing of relevant literature; the developing of a research problem; the framing of a problem with an appropriate research method; and the constructing of a coherent research design. It also serves as an introduction to ethics and ethical misconduct, intellectual property, and environmental health and safety. Through this course, students develop a research proposal.
Course Objectives
The objective of the course is to cover quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches to research by identifying the components of a literature review process and exploring the research gaps that potentially lead to innovative research ideas. The course also outlines numerous methodologies for conducting innovative research. The course aims to provide solid foundations related to ethical principles of research, intellectual property, ethical challenges and ethical misconduct, health, and safety issues—as well as developing a research proposal.
Student Learning Outcomes
- Identify situations requiring the consideration of ethics and that demonstrate strong ethical reasoning.
- Critically evaluate a paper and efficiently identify its main points.
- Identify a relevant research question and formulate a hypothesis.
- Analyze key aspects of intellectual property and how they apply to relevant research projects.
- Identify and apply key procedures related to health, environmental safety hazards, and ethical approvals related to laboratory experiments.
- Critically communicate research problems and methodologies applied to scientific research—both orally and in writing.
