Abstract
Engineering aims to improve the quality of daily life on a planet with limited resources. This chapter describes how the European Project Semester offered by the School of Engineering of the Porto Polytechnic contributes to make engineering undergraduates conscious of their environmental and societal impact. The program is a project-based active learning framework where problem-solving is supported by intercultural communication and creativity, ethical and sustainable reasoning, and global contextual analysis. This analysis shows that it fosters scientific, technical, and interpersonal competencies, emphasizing ethical and sustainable design as recommended by several reference institutions through the testimonials left on the project reports and the evolution perceived by the participants during the semester. These findings are supported by a sample of 45 projects conducted by 228 students from 23 countries and 65 degrees. All projects aimed to have a lasting impact on the future engineering practice of participants and, somehow, transform the world positively.
TopIntroduction
Life on Earth is an endless quest to perpetuate species in time through reproduction. However, reproduction does not provide a default mechanism to pass on knowledge to the next generations. From rudimentary chemical information to the demonstration of experiences and procedures by trial and error, nature finds in humanity the most complex and elaborate way of transmitting information to offspring (Besson, 2014).
Nowadays, the challenge is not only to convey knowledge, but to create an educational framework where the student can be actively committed to his/her own education and, at the same time, contribute to the preservation of life and the planet.
This chapter reports how the European Project Semester (EPS) offered by Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) combines active learning and sustainability-driven engineering education. On the one hand, active learning, which is founded in constructivist epistemology, states that learning requires the active participation of the student and comes about through transactions and dialogue among students and between faculty and students, in a social setting (Panitz, 1999). On the other hand, educating engineers for sustainable development involves fostering critical and ethical thinking and instilling a lifelong search for equity, solidarity and preservation of natural resources, cultural and genetic diversity (Duarte et al., 2020). This combination is particularly well-suited since student motivation and engagement tend to increase when challenged to design ethics and sustainability-driven solutions to real problems.
EPS@ISEP relies on project-based learning and teamwork as a means to promote the development of technical-scientific and soft skills in undergraduates, while designing sustainable and ethical solutions. This learning framework educates engineer undergraduates to become agents of change, contributing to a joint, peaceful and sustainable future on Earth.
This document is organized into five sections. Section 2 provides the background. Section 3 describes the European Project Semester and its implementation at ISEP. Section 4 presents EPS@ISEP facts and testimonies. Section 5 draws the conclusions.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Socio-Professional Ethics: A moral compass guiding professional actions and decisions with the goal to improve the well-being of individuals, society, and planet.
Sustainability-Driven Design: A conceptual design process where decisions aim to minimize the economic, environmental, and social impact of the product lifecycle.
Active Learning: A student-centered learning method that promotes autonomous search for knowledge.
Engineering Education: The noble task of training conscientious and proficient engineers.
Teamwork: A collaborative work method where several people work towards a shared goal (usually unattainable individually) that maximizes the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of the participants.
European Project Semester: A one-semester engineering program that implements active and project-based learning, multicultural and multidisciplinary teamwork and ethics and sustainability driven design to develop key professional competencies in future engineers.
Project-Based Learning: A learning framework where students are responsible for finding a solution to real-world self-motivating challenges.