September 19th, 2024 - Jennifer Russell (front right), assistant professor in the department of sustainable biomaterials, works with her students. CNRE students in the department of sustainable biomaterials sort through 24 hours of trash collected by Woodland Hills retirement community in Roanoke, VA to provide advice for how the organization can reduce their environmental impact. (Photo by Luke Hayes/Virginia Tech)

 

SBIO 2504: Circular Economy Analytics

In Circular Economy Analytics, you’ll explore how to move beyond the old “take-make-dispose” linear model and dive into the emerging circular economy—where products, materials, and energy are kept in motion rather than wasted. This course equips you with the concepts, tools, and data-driven approaches needed to analyze and design systems that are smarter, more sustainable, and more ethical.

Through hands-on problem solving, you’ll use computational tools and analytics to measure the circularity of everyday products and processes, then test ideas for creating more sustainable business models in a global context. Case studies will bring real-world challenges to life, helping you think critically about risks, ethics, and policy impacts when using data to shape decisions.

By the end, you won’t just understand what a circular economy is—you’ll have the skills to model it, measure it, and plan for it. If you’re ready to apply math, data, and systems thinking to some of society’s biggest sustainability challenges, this class is your launch point.

Once you successfully completed this course, you will be able to:

  1. Differentiate between linear and circular systems and explain their impacts on resource use, waste, and sustainability.
  2. Apply computational tools and data analytics to quantify life-cycle circularity of products and processes.
  3. Evaluate case studies to identify opportunities and challenges in designing circular business models.

 

Overall Pathways Mission

As a central component of the undergraduate experience at Virginia Tech, the Pathways curriculum will guide students to examine the world from multiple perspectives and integrate their knowledge across disciplines and domains of learning through a hands-on, minds-on approach.

The Pathways curriculum includes seven core learning concepts and two integrative learning concepts. The concepts reflect broad knowledge areas for study and are supported by student learning outcomes. These outcomes describe the observable behaviors that students will demonstrate as they pursue breadth and/or depth related to particular outcomes. 

SBIO 2504 is a Pathways Concept #5a Course

Concept 5a: Quantitative and Computational Thinking - Creative engagement with the world by the manipulation of precisely defined symbolic representations. Quantitative thinking is the formulation of questions that can be addressed using mathematical principles, leading to answers that include reliable and usable measures of accuracy. Computational thinking is the ability to conceive meaningful, information-based representations of the world that can be effectively manipulated using a computer. Courses that meet concept #5a will teach you the following:

  1. Explain the application of computational or quantitative thinking across multiple knowledge domains.
  2. Apply the foundational principles of computational or quantitative thinking to frame a question and devise a solution in a particular field of study.
  3. Identify the impacts of computing and information technology on humans.
  4. Construct models based on computational methods to analyze complex or large-scale phenomenon.
  5. Draw valid quantitative inferences about situations characterized by inherent uncertainty.
  6. Evaluate conclusions drawn from or decisions based on quantitative data.
Learn more about Pathways at Virginia Tech!
View a flyer detailing the 7 Pathways concepts!