The contemporary engineer: developing sustainability attributes and transferable skills through open-ended activities

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dc.contributor.authorFitzpatrick, John J.
dc.contributor.authorByrne, Edmond P.
dc.contributor.authorGutiƩrrez Ortiz, Francisco Javier
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-27T11:52:56Z
dc.date.available2021-07-27T11:52:56Z
dc.date.issued2021-06-14
dc.description.abstractAn essential aspect of engineering education is the provision of core competences in discipline specific knowledge and its application. Added to this, engineering education must equip its students with a range of transferable skills in order to facilitate their working within a variety of organisations, skills which are much valued by employers. Critically for the 21st century, engineering graduates entering the workforce must be equipped with knowledge and competences in sustainability / sustainable development, as this is becoming more and more important within organisations. More importantly it is an existential imperative for humanity, which is of particular relevance to young people, including newly graduated engineers who must be equipped with sustainability knowledge and competences to effectively contribute to the good of a society that needs to transition to a sustainable pathway. Such competencies are also required by professional accreditation organisations. This may require paradigmatic change in how we view both our profession and the world we inhabit. This paper briefly highlights a number of proposed sustainability related skills and competences. It then focuses on the development of these through open-ended activities and problems. This is based on the active learning premise where students achieve better quality learning by actively doing things themselves. The paper outlines four examples of activities undertaken at University College Cork and at the University of Seville. They include a transdisciplinary group exercise, environmental consultancy role-play, sustainability / environmental debates, and converting a closed well-defined problem into an open-ended one followed by the addition of layers of complexity and holistic considerations. It highlights the learning outcomes, transferable skills and sustainability knowledge and competences that students may obtain from undertaking the highlighted activities.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationFitzpatrick, J. J., Byrne, E. P. and GutiĆ©rrez Ortiz, F. J. (2021) ā€˜The contemporary engineer: developing sustainability attributes and transferable skills through open-ended activities,ā€™ EESD2021: Proceedings of the 10th Engineering Education for Sustainable Development Conference, 'Building Flourishing Communities', University College Cork, Ireland, 14-16 June.en
dc.identifier.endpage8en
dc.identifier.issn2737-7741
dc.identifier.startpage1en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/11594
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity College Corken
dc.relation.ispartofEESD2021: Proceedings of the 10th Engineering Education for Sustainable Development Conference
dc.relation.urihttps://www.eesd2020.org/
dc.relation.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10468/11459
dc.rightsĀ© 2021, the Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licenseen
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/en
dc.subjectSustainability competencesen
dc.subjectTransferable skillsen
dc.subjectOpen-ended activitiesen
dc.subjectGraduate attributesen
dc.subjectEngineering educationen
dc.subjectSustainabilityen
dc.subjectSustainable developmenten
dc.titleThe contemporary engineer: developing sustainability attributes and transferable skills through open-ended activitiesen
dc.typeConference itemen
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