Sustainable Manufacturing Curriculum: Greening the Future by Educating Tomorrow's Workforce

As sustainable manufacturing takes hold across the country, the demand for employees who are trained to identify opportunities for improving process efficiencies and preventing environmental wastes will explode. While some job candidates have a basic knowledge of lean manufacturing techniques, few realize how environmental wastes and pollution prevention relate to lean initiatives.

The Sustainable Manufacturing Curriculum: Greening the Future by Educating Tomorrow's Workforce is intended for educators at high schools, career and vocational institutes, community colleges and trade schools. The curriculum is made up of three modules: Environmental Sustainability, Lean Manufacturing and Pollution Prevention, and Energy and Carbon. Each module includes a slide presentation and a facilitator's guide complete with handouts, activities, quizzes, and facilitator's notes. The facilitator's guide also uses visually engaging icons to assist educators in appropriately conveying the material to the students.

The curriculum is designed so that educators have the flexibility to incorporate these modules into their existing course material or parceled by topic. Each module requires approximately three hours of classroom time requiring up to nine hours implement the entire curriculum. The curriculum modules were built with flexibility in mind. They include many discussion questions and activities allowing for variable times to implement in the classroom. Educators can and should pick and choose which topics, discussion questions, and activities best fit their classroom needs.

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Module 1: Environmental Sustainability