Board 115: Integrating Humanities with Engineering Fundamentals

Abstract

At the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, a set of sustainable development goals was formed and adopted by world leaders. These goals, which were set to be achieved in a fifteen-year period, address pressing universal issues, including climate change, social inequalities, poverty, and clean water access. The field of engineering is regarded as an essential part of addressing world issues. The humanities, however, are often considered to be dichotomous with the field of engineering. A bridge between engineering and humanities must be built, for they are incontestably intertwined. Engineering, by its very nature, is based around creativity and moving the world forward. Too often, engineering courses teach only equations and figures, overlooking how these fundamentals relate to the world and its people. In an effort to empower and prepare the next generation of engineers to create sustainable solutions to global issues, the Algae Grows the Future team at Rowan University, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), has developed a curriculum based around algae. This curriculum utilizes algae-based experiments and lessons to teach foundational engineering principles, emphasize the link between engineering and humanities, and encourage students to pursue creative, conscientious solutions. The curriculum has been designed with adjustable complexity, suiting K-12 and college freshman students, and has been implemented in both middle school and freshman engineering classrooms. Calorimetry experiments allow students to investigate the nutritional benefits of algae-based products and challenge students to consider the application of algae in the fight against world hunger. Gas transfer experiments are used to research the sustainability of algae in the water treatment process. Algae can also be used to generate energy sustainably, as the oils found in some algae species can be used as biofuels. Students will learn about biofuels and will extract algae oils to generate energy within the classroom. While students will be learning principles of math and science, they will also be encouraged to explore the political, cultural, and economic barriers that prevent algae-based solutions from being implemented in many places around the world. The objective of this curriculum is to give students the knowledge to solve sustainable development issues in the future, while also teaching crucial engineering skills and awareness of global issues. The curriculum has been successfully implemented in first-year engineering classes and a middle school classroom and ultimately hopes to teach a generation of future thinkers the impact that engineering can have on solving humanitarian issues around the world.

Systematic Review of How Engineering Schools around the World Are Deploying the 2030 Agenda

“…Given this complexity, the collaboration of the university with its stakeholders is essential for both decision-making and implementation in everything related to sustainability. Among these collaboration agents are: (1) other universities, such as, for example, the collaboration between universities in Sweden and Tanzania to introduce new pedagogies in the latter [34]; the network of 19 European universities for the development of Capstone Projects [5]; or the consortium of French universities to respond to the initiative of the government to deploy SDGs in agricultural engineering [14]; (2) other disciplines within the same university, such as the case of chemical engineering students who are asked to carry out interdisciplinary projects that they must then explain to students from other areas [25], or the case in which a subject is divided into humanities and engineering and taught by an interdisciplinary team of teachers [30]; (3) pre-university institutions, such as the incorporation of an algae-based curriculum in the last year of secondary school and first year of undergraduate studies [28], or the project at a Russian university for the prediction of ecological damage and the resolution of ecological security problems [4]; (4) the business and industrial network, as for instance, to develop the End of Degree Projects with external mentors [26], as a destination for the analysis of gender inequalities in product design at the Japanese university [12], to train students while working [13] or, as in the case of the university in Tanzania, to carry out their projects in an electricity company [34]; (5) technology centers, where simulations are carried out [18]; (6) governments, as in the collaboration with the University of Tanzania [34], or the French public initiative for a new curriculum [14]; (6) non-governmental organizations, which provide fieldwork for students [9], and, finally, (7) the demanded collaboration with accreditation bodies and other quality institutions to discuss how to ensure and integrate academic outcomes with appropriate and ethical practices [23], to improve degrees in Africa and gain in mobility [16], or to collaborate, together with the other institutions involved, in determining the most appropriate attributes, competencies, and learning outcomes of an engineering graduate to help achieve the SDGs [9].…”

“…With the solid base of the contributions of the different stakeholders, it is up to the university to design the path towards the development of the engineer who works for sustainability. Given the close relationship between the technical, economic, political, and social aspects of this problem, an interdisciplinary approach among different subjects [12], taking into account the humanities [28,30], is considered fundamental for the development of the necessary systemic thinking [25,29], problem-solving [33], and creativity [25].…”

“…Eight authors referred to changes in the curricula of engineering education, either because they demanded that they achieve the SDGs [9,16,23,27] or they described a particular case in which they were changed [13,14,28,33] to progress in them. The rest described experiences that were more specific on certain subjects.…”

“…For this purpose, collaboration with stakeholders is once again essential. The strategies described in the papers were very varied, depending upon the possibilities of a greater approach to reality: Practice-based Education (PBE), in which students learn by working [13]; Internship (IS) [23]; Challenge-based Learning [4,5,14,15,31,34]; Problem-based Learning [11,16,23,25,33]; the theory for inventive problem-solving (TRIZ) [4] (all of them based in projects); Service learning (SL) [23,25]; laboratory experiments and simulations [11,18,28]. Some of these strategies were used to work on SDGs in the Capstone Projects [5,15,23,26] and in some cases, the best solutions were implemented in developing countries [31].…”

“…Jahan et al (2018) [28] addressed the SDGs of Zero hunger, Good health and well-being, Clean water and sanitation, and Affordable and clean energy. The aim of this project was to promote the integration of engineering and the humanities from the first year of schooling by improving the teaching of fundamental engineering principles, emphasizing the link between engineering and the humanities, and encouraging students to pursue creative and conscientious solutions.…”