The environmental impact of electronics and its incorporation into the curriculum

Parsons, David (2006) The environmental impact of electronics and its incorporation into the curriculum. In: AaeE 2006: 17th Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, 10-13 Dec 2006, Auckland, New Zealand.

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Abstract

With the continuing ubiquitous use of electronic equipment and the boom in consumer electronic products, there comes a significant environmental impact, via the sources of materials and manufacturing processes and in the place of use and disposal. There is growing international market pressure on industry to act to ameliorate these impacts by good design and sensible policies. An overview of the impacts is given along with a review of several tools which can be used by industry to assess the impacts.

In the light of the situation described above, an argument is presented that more work in this area should be done in educating undergraduate engineers and technologists and that the software tools now available are adequate, appropriate and suitable to the engineering approach to such matters. With relatively little effort on the part of academics, it is possible to teach some form of assessment of environmental impact in a way which is both realistic and meaningful to students. Some detail of the author’s experiences in teaching such matters is given

Statistics for this ePrint Item

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Commonwealth Reporting Category E) (Paper)
Refereed:	Yes
Item Status:	Live Archive
Additional Information:	Authors retain copyright.
Faculty/School / Institute/Centre:	Historic - Faculty of Engineering and Surveying - Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (Up to 30 Jun 2013)
Faculty/School / Institute/Centre:	Historic - Faculty of Engineering and Surveying - Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (Up to 30 Jun 2013)
Date Deposited:	11 Oct 2007 00:45
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2013 22:38
Uncontrolled Keywords:	electronics; environment; life cycle analysis; curriculum; assessment tools; sustainability
Fields of Research (2008):	05 Environmental Sciences > 0502 Environmental Science and Management > 050203 Environmental Education and Extension 13 Education > 1301 Education Systems > 130103 Higher Education 09 Engineering > 0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering > 090699 Electrical and Electronic Engineering not elsewhere classified
Socio-Economic Objectives (2008):	B Economic Development > 89 Information and Communication Services > 8998 Environmentally Sustainable Information and Communication Services > 899802 Management of Solid Waste from Information and Communication Services
URI:	http://eprints.usq.edu.au/id/eprint/1499

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