Building knowledge of sustainable development in engineering undergraduates equips them to develop future solutions to a variety of societal, environmental and economic challenges. A credit-bearing course has been developed over the last two years at the University of Liverpool to introduce Sustainable Development to first-year Engineering students. Respecting the diverse background and prior experience of this cohort, the course aimed to raise appreciation of global challenges and the role of professional engineers in contributing to their solutions, whilst giving students a knowledge baseline to provide context for further learning in sustainable engineering. It built on an existing self-paced online resource co-created with students, adding newly developed material and including sustainable development case studies specific to engineering. It was structured around the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals in the context of the 5 P’s: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnerships. Case studies were aligned to one of the 5 P’s with a commentary highlighting how and why engineers were involved in the activity. Assessment was an open book, online MCQ to check engagement and understanding, covering each of the 5 P’s. After the first year of implementation, student feedback and satisfaction levels were gathered in an anonymous survey, with engagement measured by rates of completion in the MCQ assessment, and by online page view statistics. Following this, operational adjustments and course updates were made to address some of the major student feedback. This included greater explanation of the engineering skills and solutions that were employed in the case studies, and attempting to address what some students felt were subjective questions. Following updates to the self-paced course, it was deployed and evaluated during a second year. Future refinement will be informed by evaluating how this activity supported students during the rest of their studies, by building baseline knowledge of and appreciation for sustainable engineering across the cohort.
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