Energy efficiency: Teaching for accreditation, ethics, and technology

Increased energy demand in IT is growing rapidly as the world becomes more industrialized. Projections show that IT growth will continue to increase, with annual network growth at 45%. Increasing worldwide energy demands results in an increase in both costs and climate change. Using the energy efficiency topic, we address 5+ ABET learning outcomes, including ethics and local/global impact. One learning goal of this section is for students to learn what constitutes sound ethical reasoning and what does not (e.g. egoism). Another goal is to categorize the social implications of the technology into spheres of concern (local/national/global) and basic ethical theories (virtue/deontology/consequentialism). One of the best ways to teach ethics is to engage the students in identifying the ethical perspectives in use. We have created a table of justifications for energy efficiency and categorized them by ethical theory. Our main source for these reasons is Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman. For homework, students write a paper that includes both a technical and societal/ethical component to it.