Multistage Sustainability Education for University Engineering Students: A Case Study from Mechanical Engineering in Technological University Dublin

Sustainability will be a key challenge that future engineering graduates must consider when solving problems. This paper sets out the approach taken in the mechanical engineering discipline of Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) to help students acquire and develop the requisite skills to integrate aspects of sustainability when tackling engineering problems. The approach, which has already been implemented across a number of different design and innovation modules, consists of two distinct phases. In the first, students are educated about sustainability and related issues. In the second phase, students are educated for sustainability and are taught to identify, define and solve problems so they can plan, develop and implement solutions to complex sustainability challenges/problems. Implementing this approach has raised questions, particularly in relation to helping students deal with conflicting requirements, understanding the limitations of their own knowledge, and the relationship between ethics and sustainability. Engineering educators will need to address such questions as they develop their approach(es) to sustainability education.