Life Cycle Assessment in Higher Education: Design and Implementation of a Teaching Sequence Activity

Abstract

The latest studies show that to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals on education, there must be a focus on adequately training higher education students. In this work, we present a study about the Life Cycle Analysis of knowledge of products and processes of engineering students. This aspect is very relevant in engineering education since it has direct implications on sustainability. The first step was to identify what the learning problems were, and taking them into account, a specific teaching sequence was designed and implemented over three academic years. Two activities, on an increasing level of complexity, of the application of Life Cycle Assessment are shown in this paper. The first one is the Life Cycle Analysis comparison between two steel and polypropylene pieces. The second one is the Life Cycle Analysis comparison between three different ends of life of a polypropylene piece: mechanical recycling, incineration, and landfill. Data on the evolution of students’ marks while solving a “one step more difficult project” throughout these courses have been collected. The results show a generalized learning by the students about Life Cycle Analysis.