Integrating sustainability in a student-centered learning environment for engineering education

Abstract

The integration of Sustainability in engineering education is increasingly implemented in engineering programs worldwide. Initially, the integration is implemented to meet the accreditation requirements for local and international accreditation bodies. In this study however, it was rather impractical to introduce a stand-alone Sustainability course considering the university-wide approach of traditional teaching and the complexity of the engineering program. This study therefore applies student-centered learning as a medium to integrate Sustainability in the engineering curriculum. Six engineering courses were examined and empirical evidence from faculty interviews and program documents were presented. The findings were analyzed in a systems approach and presented in three factors: input, throughput and output factors. The final part of the paper concludes by presenting the reflections of the study. There are three key findings of this study: (i) the integration of Sustainability is not fully implemented in all engineering courses, (ii) student-centered learning environment offers a learning medium to integrate Sustainability without compensating the technical and engineering contents, and (iii) when implemented, the integration of Sustainability is mainly focus on one pillar i.e., environment pillar (a singular approach).