Engineering Solutions For A More Inclusive Society: A Case Study With Europe-Wide Challenge-Based Learning

Engineering practices directly impact our society and yet, traditional engineering courses often present a lack of emphasis on social and sustainable responsibility. Therefore, a course was designed to increase societal awareness and promote social-conscious engineering practices, and also interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration. The course followed the concept of challenge-based learning (CBL) and was offered within the framework of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU). In such framework, students from 13 European partner universities could join, as well as professionals and citizens as so-called continuous learners. The challenge addressed the issue of an increasingly aging European society and the physical hurdles brought by aging. In cooperation with a local senior citizens' residence, the participants of the challenge identified everyday challenges in dialogue with senior citizens, and jointly developed 3D printed solutions for such. The article deals with the conception and the accompanying reflection throughout the project. Students were asked how they evaluated the CBL course and how they reflected on the development of their social awareness. Based on the "mixedmethod" approach, data were collected, analysed and evaluated with questionnaires (pre- and final survey) and student reflection questionnaires at milestones meetings. This paper emphasize on students’ experiences, obstacles and teamchers’ solutions in all three CBL phases, just despite the final event and evaluation.