Environmental instrumentation-a vehicle for multidisciplinary education in electronic engineering degrees

Environmental issues are increasingly being addressed in taught courses of many types and there now exist a number of environmental engineering undergraduate degrees and Masters level taught courses. However, there has been very little inclusion of environmental subjects in electrical and electronic engineering degree courses. This increasingly important shortfall was identified at Hull University with the introduction of the undergraduate option on the environment into the final (fourth) year of an electronic engineering degree. Since the environment has such a wide remit, it was decided to concentrate primarily on sensing and measuring systems rather than environmental impact, legislation, etc., although these are covered briefly. This paper describes the development of the final year Environmental Electronics option and discusses the utilisation of instrumentation in the teaching of such a multidisciplinary topic