Exploring the Intersection between Engineering and Sustainability Education

Abstract

Sustainability and sustainable development are cornerstones of many of the greatest challenges that engineering faces in the 21st century. Yet, most engineering programs do not explicitly prepare students to engineer within the bounds of sustainability. While engineering education must change in order to more fully integrate sustainability, such change should leverage intersections among what engineering students bring to the table, how engineering educators teach, and the sustainability challenges defined by experts in engineering. This study focuses specifically on what students are bringing to the table by first comparing what students intend to contribute to a more sustainable world to what they should contribute as defined by the grand challenges of engineering. Qualitative analyses of what students say about how they intend to contribute to sustainability show that these statements cover only a small subset of the grand challenges. Additional quantitative analyses show that more engineering students than students in non-STEM fields (business and education) have a strong sense of personal responsibility regarding critical sustainability issues in sustainable energy and waste management. These results suggest that, with proper intervention from engineering educators, engineering students are well positioned and motivated to pursue and expand their sense of responsibility for sustainability.