Integration of education for sustainable development in the mechanical engineering curriculum

This paper presents and analyses the integration with progression of education for sustainable development in Chalmers University of Technology's MScEng programme in Mechanical Engineering. The program has an aim and structure that emphasises employability, integration of general engineering skills, authentic engineering experiences with a focus on holistic view of the complete lifecycle of products and systems. The realisation of these aims stress the need of an integrated and adaptable sustainable development education for mechanical engineering. To reach this goal, we applied a combined top-down and bottom-up education development process that started with the formulation of program vision and program level learning outcomes. Faculty meetings and workshop were used to formulate the course learning outcomes and to map the program level outcomes to courses in which the outcomes are satisfied followed this. The strategy integrated specific sustainability topics in courses where it is appropriate and to have a separate course in sustainable development to ensure that general aspects of sustainable development are included and that a team of faculty takes full responsibility for this. Design-build-test project courses are shown to be suitable arenas for integrating teaching and learning of sustainable development. Results from a student survey on perceptions of the relevance and quality of sustainability education are discussed. Finally, continuing challenges in the area are identified. © Institution of Engineers Australia, 2013.