Drawing from SEFI ethics knowledge to support ecological ethics in technological education

We are leading a project called Ethico within the European University of Technology (EUt). Ethico aims to design and promote the uptake of innovative, ecological ethics for technological education. This practice paper briefly summarizes the aims and structure of the Ethico project, and then focuses on the work completed as part of the teacher training module developed in Cluj, 7-9th March, 2023. This workshop drew its conceptual framework from the short abstracts currently available for the Engineering Ethics Education Handbook. The structure developed was then implemented in a student facing workshop in Troyes between the 10-14th July 2023. The handbook is under development by SEFI’s Ethics special interest group, who shared the content with us (the second author of this paper is part of both projects). We drew particularly from Theme 3 of the handbook, which covers Teaching Methods for Engineering Ethics Education (EEE), for the Intensive Study Periods in Cluj and Troyes. Drawing from these EEE abstracts, we designed and tested a teacher training course, with the express aim of achieving flexibility for appropriate application in diverse cultural and administrative university settings. This is because the EUt is comprised of eight universities in eight separate European countries. We explored how we could apply the literature review chapter of theme 3 (on education methods) and of the EEE Handbook, as well as the dialogical/reflective chapter, and some of the specific pedagogical methods for building student awareness, understanding and analytical decision making in ethics. Our work in Cluj focused on three of the Student-Centred Learning approaches presented in the Handbook— case studies, challenge- and problem-based learning, and Virtuous Practice Design—with very promising results. The paper examines the ethical model engaged with and the teaching models developed at the EUt event in Cluj and Troyes using the EEE Handbook. It outlines our proposed module for eco-ethics in technological education, highlighting the key tensions for implementation in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary contexts and incorporates preliminary feedback from student participants.