Purpose: In education concerning environmental issues, there are two predominant currents in the world, environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). ESD is the formal commitment and therefore promoted by the United Nations, to ensure that countries achieve sustainable development. In contrast, EE was the first…

Purpose: Considering the relevance of education for sustainable development (SD) to enhancing engineers' abilities to contribute towards sustainability-related issues, this study aims to help understand the global context of the insertion of SD into engineering education and to provide guidelines to further evolve research and efforts towards…

Purpose: Literature limited in scope regarding the incorporation of sustainability into engineering curriculum encouraged authors to look at the current approaches of universities to the integration of sustainability into university curricula. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the literature published and analyse the university secondary…

Engineering education for sustainable design often focuses on technical solutions with little consideration of social impact. This paper presents a case study of a project-based learning (PBL) studio course engaging engineering students in social and sustainable design practices with external clients in developing economies. The case is a review…

Purpose: This study aims to explore the role of planned, sudden shifts in lived experiences, in influencing learner capabilities towards improved problem-solving for sustainable development outcomes. The authors responded to employers of engineering and built environment graduates observing limited "real-life" problem-solving skills,…

Purpose: Sustainability within tertiary curriculum is hard to measure and often perceived to be illusive in nature. Existing higher education sustainability assessment tools rarely focus on the curriculum. This paper aims to establish and implement a tool that can measure sustainability integration within curriculum. The Faculty of Engineering and…

Concept maps are used to assess student and cohort learning of sustainable development. The concept maps of 732 first-year engineering students were individually analyzed to detect patterns of learning and areas that were not well understood. Students were given 20 minutes each to prepare a concept map of at least 20 concepts using paper and pen.…

This paper presents data from a project that aims to determine the level of knowledge and understanding of engineering students about sustainable development (SD). The data derive from a survey completed by final year engineering students in three Irish Higher Education Institutions. This paper is part of a larger study that examines the…

Globalization has put countries in competitive and collaborative mode. Underdeveloped nations are in catch-up phase, developing nations are in competitive phase and the advanced nations are in commanding phase with respect to certain technologies. Innovation--Technological, Business and Education--is imperative for sustainable socio-economic…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how industrial ecology can facilitate the achievement of sustainable development through its incorporation into an engineering curriculum. Design/methodology/approach: A model has been developed for assessing sustainability learning outcomes due to the incorporation of the concept of industrial ecology…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the rationale for teaching sustainability and engineering ethics within a decision-making paradigm, and critically appraise ways of achieving related learning outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents the experience of the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney in…

Metaphors can be powerful teaching and learning tools which may help us to understand novel, complex or abstract concepts using familiar language and thought structures. Academics routinely use metaphors in their university teaching to explain new or difficult ideas to students. In this article the authors argue that tertiary teachers' metaphors…

Integrating sustainability into an undergraduate engineering program at the University of Technology, Sydney has been a challenging project. The authors of this paper have been participant observers of the integration process. In this paper, they have attempted an analysis of that process, focussing on the dynamics of the network of people and…

An interdisciplinary sustainable design project that combines membrane technology with renewable energy to provide water for remote communities and developing countries was offered to students for voluntary participation. Through continuous design stages and improvements on several prototypes, laboratory testing and several field trials in…

These proceedings contain the papers and posters of the International Conferences on Internet Technologies & Society (ITS 2016), Educational Technologies (ICEduTech 2016) and Sustainability, Technology and Education (STE 2016), which have been organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society and…