Assessments of student behavior in firstsemester design experiences suggest that early teambased design projects can promote a team performance goal orientation that undermines students' learning goals. In particular, we find that gender-correlated division of work can easily and unconsciously occur in these teams and that performance-oriented teams may be more likely to undermine womens' learning goals then mens' learning goals. We propose mechanisms to explain the effect and present results of promising interventions.

Engineering and science education is on a trajectory in which core domain knowledge is complemented by the economic and human dimensions of technology. Adding these dimensions can attract a broader range of students to technical careers while also producing more socially conscious innovators. There is growing interest in learning models that can combine technology and community engagement for exposing students to economic and human impacts. This paper outlines lessons learned from two different institutions with programs giving students deep experiences in community-based, technical design projects across both domestic and international environments. One program has grown within a large established university for almost two decades with an emphasis on engineering applied towards community-based design, and has scaled to over 20 universities. The other program emphasizes global collaboration and has been running for five years at a small, private engineering college with a focus on the intersection of engineering, entrepreneurship and society. Highlighting common elements of the two programs gives insights into how to introduce and sustain such education models. We present the lessons learned in critical areas such as curriculum and credit, institutional context, community partnering, faculty development, student preparation and assessment, development processes, project selection, project operations, team organization, advisor roles, and mentoring.

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Biomimicry practice and pedagogy unify biology and design for problem solving inspired by nature. Pedagogy that supports biomimicry practice can facilitate the development of novel solutions to address societal needs and challenges. Even though biomimicry affords the possibility to address sustainability, its current practice does not necessarily lead to doing so, which can result in exploitation of nature and increased unsustainability. Recognition of this risk exists but is not yet widespread in biomimicry pedagogy, and few structured methodologies are available to support learner’s efforts towards sustainability. The difficulties associated with incorporating sustainability within biomimicry are numerous and varied. In this report, we contribute to an understanding of incorporating sustainability in teaching and learning. We describe a pedagogical framing and conceptual scaffolding developed and used to bring sustainability into a biomimicry course for design- and biology-minded engineering students that integrates available biomimicry and design language, tools, and methods. We scaffold consideration of structure-function and conditions conducive to life separately, and then unify these perspectives in a way that is accessible to students. This approach centralizes sustainability in biomimicry practice and asks students to consider the ethics of design practice and responsibility to the natural world. We are encouraged by student outcomes, observing clear signs of creative systemic thinking and higher-level learning from nature. Based on pre- and post-design sprint results, students significantly shifted away from a narrower structure-function practice towards addressing conditions conducive to life. We propose that biomimicry educators and facilitators make a commitment to always include a sustainability approach within their pedagogy or explicitly acknowledge their delivery does not provide for it.

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