The sustainable and energy-efficient interior design course engages about 50 undergraduate students in the Interior Design program in a coordinated program of research, hands-on immersive learning in home energy assessment tools and techniques, and curriculum development. It will supplement students’ understanding of energy efficiency assessment and analysis in residential buildings as well as students’ knowledge of renewable energy solutions and their application in a residential setting. The project also assists a community partner by providing analytical reports of real-world demonstration homes that evaluate and suggest improvements for more efficient home energy consumption to benefit current and future homeowners and builders in the community. In the previous studies, Interior Design students suffer difficulties with the energy concept and green building design as well as the students and educators have not sufficiently communicated energy-related concepts (Goldring & Osborne, 1994; Ruff & Olson, 2009). Many students have knowledge of sustainable methods and products to design residential and commercial projects (Ruff & Olson, 2009), but they are not aware much of how energy works in the built environment. In addition, the instruction with examples of sustainable projects is not sufficient to teach energy-related concepts to the students (McKeown, Hopkins, Rizi, & Chrystalbridge, 2002). This limitation may result in Interior Design students not being able to perform properly environmentally friendly design in green building projects. Therefore, this project challenges undergraduates to master specific energy assessment knowledge, skills, and tools and engage in real-world opportunities to assess building energy systems in residential settings. Students can actively discuss and determine the methods to test energy efficiency and conduct energy assessments in a total of five single- and/or multi-family homes, processes that include airtightness, heating and cooling, and ventilation; they can develop the contact and format of summary reports for each home and determine the most effective method of presenting the final energy assessment analysis to the community partner and homeowners/caretakers. Following initial instruction by the faculty, each team can develop a plan detailing how to conduct the initial site visit to its home. This visit will prepare the homeowner/caretaker for the energy assessment; they will discuss project goals, energy testing procedures, and strategies, setting the client at ease with the overall process. The community partner facilitates opportunities for students to perform the home assessment in different types of constructions in the community. Students are exposed to a variety of home types (e.g., singlestory/multi-story construction, older/newer construction, different building materials, different building techniques, etc.) as well as interact with residents coming from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. Finding ways to adapt as needed to these technical and social variables will allow students the opportunity to engage in diverse settings that mimic their future professional experience. This project will prepare the ground for the development of a recurring annual course offering for students in the Interior Design program, helping the faculties to develop and enhance the course content based on the assessments’ technical results, student learning assessments, student feedback, and feedback from the community partner. The project also will enable participating students to develop new technical knowledge, improve their ability to work successfully with institutional and individual clients in a professional manner, improve study and work habits, and broaden their knowledge and experience to compete in a future job market
