Sustainability and LCA in Engineering Education – A Course Curriculum

Olsen, Stig Irving; Fantke, Peter; Laurent, Alexis; Birkved, Morten; Bey, Niki; Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

doi:10.1016/j.procir.2017.11.114

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…For instance, Burnley et al ( 2019 ) present a software tool developed at Cranfield University to allow part-time distance learning students to gain an understanding and experience of LCA. Olsen et al ( 2018 ) and Cosme et al ( 2019 ) present the LCA course experience at the Technical University of Denmark, including how students and companies are engaged in the course allowing a win–win situation to all stakeholders. De Souza et al ( 2014 ) summarize experiences on graduate education in Brazil considering inputs from five different universities, and identified among others, common challenges among the partners as lack of national inventories to model LCA studies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bloom’s taxonomy is widely used for analysing and classifying cognitive skills in higher education and has been used in the LCA teaching context before (e.g. Favi et al 2019 ; Olsen et al 2018 ; Roure et al 2018 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The level of LCA competency required from students therefore varies to a high degree. Depending on the university and scientific field, the level of LCA competency that is currently taught can vary considerably (Olsen et al 2018 ). While some universities only introduce the concept as (a small) part of regular courses, others offer dedicated courses, modules, minors, or majors on the subject.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching life cycle assessment in higher education

Viere

Amor

Berger

et al. 2020

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose Scientific Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) literature provides some examples of LCA teaching in higher education, but not a structured overview of LCA teaching contents and related competencies. Hence this paper aims at assessing and highlighting trends in LCA learning outcomes, teaching approaches and developed content used to equip graduates for their future professional practices in sustainability. Methods Based on a literature review on teaching LCA in higher education and a collaborative consensus building approach through expert group panel discussions, an overview of LCA learning and competency levels with related teaching contents and corresponding workload is developed. The levels are built on the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and Bloom’s taxonomy of learning. Results and discussion The paper frames five LCA learning and competency levels that differ in terms of study program integration, workload, cognitive domain categories, learning outcomes, and envisioned professional skills. It furthermore provides insights into teaching approaches and content, including software use, related to these levels. Conclusions and recommendations This paper encourages and supports higher educational bodies to implement a minimum of ‘life cycle literacy’ into students’ curriculum across various domains by increasing the availability, visibility and quality of their teaching on life cycle thinking and LCA.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching life cycle assessment in higher education

Viere

Amor

Berger

et al. 2020

Int J Life Cycle Assess

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, our case study-based methodology must be also reinforced with international practices. So, it seems interesting to deepen this line of work as do many European and Anglo-Saxon universities (Mihelcic and Hokanson, 2005;Hokanson et al, 2007;Svanström et al, 2012;Olsen et al, 2018;Pérez-Foguet and Lazzarini, 2019) and Asian universities (Akiyama et al, 2012). The objective will be to propose a wider and more generic framework for ecodesign education as a contribution to sustainability education.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of contribution and lacks of the ecodesign education to the achievement of sustainability issues by analyzing the French education system

Perpignan

Robin

Baouch

et al. 2020

AIEDAM

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The sustainability concept is becoming ingrained in the international engineering community. The next generation of engineers has to be trained to appreciate economic, environmental, and societal impacts of its decisions, with an international perspective and at a local and global scale. The aim of this paper is to contribute to identifying the strengths and limits of current sustainability education practices to will be able to improve future decision-makers' and product designers' training. The first step of our research concerns the identification of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values associated with sustainability and ecodesign to highlight what kind of engineers' competencies for sustainability have to be trained. Based on this identification, we examine the French education system from secondary school to university to study sustainability and ecodesign integration in different technological French curricula and practices. The objective is to estimate the effective place of sustainable development and ecodesign in the technological training courses. We analyze programs and complete our approach by observing teachers in their classrooms or by conducting interviews. Even if concepts, knowledge and skills related to ecodesign appear in many different programs, our study emphasizes that there is not a continuum between pre-secondary school, high school, and university. As a consequence, teachers have difficulties to understand the aims and the coherence of the program, and students are not really comfortable with the issues of sustainability and ecodesign. We propose to improve programs and practices by developing multidisciplinary curricula covering most of the sustainable issues and integrating best practices of international universities.

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“…Current studies identify the needs for new strategies to include sustainability in engineering education [36]. All, including this one, propose to integrate faculty's sustainability knowledge into the technological courses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Electrical Engineering Programs for an Energy Sustainability Inclusive Degree

Reyes-Lopez

González-Martínez²

2019

Proceedings of the 17th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education, and Technology: “Industry, Innovation

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After suffering some consequences of global warming over the last decades, governments have been adopting different approaches for the sustainable development of nations. Thus, universities have had to adapt their programs to the requirements of the market. This article responds to the need of knowing what Ecuadorian universities think about the modifications in the curricula of electrical engineering programs, such as the inclusion of renewable energy courses. To achieve this goal, the project surveys a representative of ten participant universities. The outcomes show that although most programs have updated their curriculum, they do not count with the necessary resources to teach specialized courses on energy sustainability for the proper formation of future professionals possessing the competences required by the current national energy exploitation scene.

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Sustainability and LCA in Engineering Education – A Course Curriculum

Cited by 19 publications

References 13 publications

Teaching life cycle assessment in higher education

Teaching life cycle assessment in higher education

Identification of contribution and lacks of the ecodesign education to the achievement of sustainability issues by analyzing the French education system

Changes in Electrical Engineering Programs for an Energy Sustainability Inclusive Degree

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