Abstract

More engineering students are needed to address climate change in their careers. These students are necessary because engineering includes designing and building machines, structures, and components that contribute large portions of society’s carbon emissions. We surveyed a national sample of undergraduate engineering students (n = 4605) in their last semester of college about their desire to address climate change in their careers and the factors that predicted these responses. Possible variables for wanting to address climate change in their career included course topics, co-curricular experiences, climate knowledge, political affiliation, religion, and other demographics. The strongest factors that predicted engineering students’ desire to address climate change in their career were related to a feeling of personal responsibility to deal with environmental problems, recognizing climate change as a technical (not social) issue, believing climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels and livestock production, and their engineering discipline. Students majoring in environmental and architectural engineering were more likely to want to address climate change in their careers than others. Previous known factors to increase motivation for climate action like course topics, political affiliation, student organization participation, undergraduate research experience, and environmental volunteering were not strong predictors among engineering undergraduate students.

摘要

需要更多的工程专业学生在他们的职业生涯中应对气候变化。这些学生是必要的，因为工程包括设计和制造机器、结构和组件，这些机器、结构和组件对社会的碳排放量有很大贡献。我们调查了一个全国性的本科工程专业学生样本（n = 4605）在他们大学的最后一个学期关于他们在职业生涯中解决气候变化的愿望以及预测这些反应的因素。希望在其职业生涯中应对气候变化的可能变量包括课程主题、课外经历、气候知识、政治派别、宗教和其他人口统计数据。预测工程专业学生在职业生涯中解决气候变化愿望的最重要因素与处理环境问题的个人责任感有关，将气候变化视为技术（而非社会）问题，相信气候变化是由燃烧化石引起的燃料和畜牧生产及其工程学科。环境和建筑工程专业的学生比其他人更有可能希望在他们的职业生涯中解决气候变化问题。先前已知的增加气候行动动机的因素，如课程主题、政治派别、学生组织参与、本科研究经验和环境志愿服务，在工程本科生中并不是强有力的预测因素。