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Thesis
Title
‘How
can embedding sustainability within engineering degree
programs be accelerated, to better equip graduate
engineers globally with the knowledge and skills to
contribute to sustainable development?’
Research
Abstract
This
thesis is premised on the emerging consensus that
engineering curriculum in higher education needs a
transformation, to equip graduates with adequate knowledge
and skills to rapidly transition society to sustainable
development. The thesis question asks how the process
of embedding sustainability within engineering education
can be accelerated and proposes to develop a framework
for curriculum renewal in engineering education for
sustainable development. The framework will draw on
findings from a review of literature, questionnaire
data, case study analysis of curriculum renewal mechanisms
in other disciplines, and case study reflection on
the candidate’s experiences in her role as the Education
Coordinator for The Natural Edge Project (TNEP). It
is proposed that the draft framework will then be
critiqued through survey and focus interviews with
selected participants in the field. Findings will
be used to further inform the development of the framework.
The Candidate invites input from supervisors and advisors
with regard to the thesis proposal, proposed methodology
and national and international connections that could
further inform the thesis.
This
research will form the basis together with contributions
from TNEP and select authors, for a special edition
of the ‘International Journal of Sustainability in
Higher Education’ (Emerald) in September 2008, on
the topic of ‘State of Education for Sustainable Development:
Embedding Sustainability into Engineering Education’.
The special edition is being coordinated by TNEP,
in a collaborative engagement with colleagues from
organisations including the World Federation of Engineering
Organisations (WFEO), UNESCO, the Alliance for Global
Sustainability (AGS), the World Technopolis Association,
the US Partnership for the Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development (USDESD), the International
Universities Association (IUA), Engineers Australia,
and the Society of Sustainability and Environmental
Engineering. It will also involve input from a number
of Australian and International University engineering
department colleagues.
Rearch Overview
This
research question contains a number of presumptions
that need to be qualified in the thesis introduction
and literature review. These are listed as the following
sub-statements and are addressed in the following
section:
1.
Sustainable development is the preferred end-goal
for society globally.
2.
Delivering sustainable development requires some level
of contribution by engineers.
3.
Knowledge and skills about sustainable development
need to be developed during undergraduate years.
4.
Every engineering degree already has some level of
sustainability content within it, which provides some
knowledge and skills to address sustainable development
challenges, but this knowledge and skill set needs
improving.
5.
The process of ‘embedding’ sustainability into curriculum
will improve this knowledge and skill set.
6.
Accelerating this process will lead to engineering
graduates who are better equipped to address these
global environmental challenges.
Field
of Research
The
proposed field for this thesis is in Curriculum Theory,
as a subset of Educational Theory. Specifically, the
thesis sits within the theoretical area of Curriculum
Renewal in Higher Education, which asks how the process
of embedding (or integrating broadly and deeply) new
concepts and content into existing higher education
curriculum can be accelerated anywhere in the world,
to achieve a rapid shift in student learning outcomes
to meet a revised set of requirements.
Gordon
and Lawton remarked in the late 1970s that curriculum,
‘has now become a central feature of arguments about
the kind of society we want and the kind of educational
system necessary for that society’ (Gordon and Lawton
1978). According to Brownell and Scarino almost 20
years later, ‘education systems are inevitably entwined
with the social, cultural, intellectual, communicative,
economic, political, scientific and technological
systems that are at work in the world and in communities
within it. In recent years all of these systems have
undergone profound and rapid change, and education
systems have had to respond to this in order to ensure
a future in which the quality of life of each community
can be maintained and further developed’ (Brownell
and Scarino 1993).
Drawing
on the strong links between higher education and its
ability to shape society, this thesis uses the theoretical
framework of Curriculum Renewal in Higher Education
in the professional discipline of engineering education.
It examines how the process of embedding sustainability
as an emerging concept and with defined content and
new design performance criteria, can be accelerated
within existing engineering curriculum anywhere in
the world, to rapidly shift or ‘transition’ the knowledge
and skill-set of graduating engineers to be able to
contribute to sustainable development (ie ‘engineering
education for sustainable development’). It uses a
new term to describe this area of theory, called ‘rapid
curriculum renewal’. Hence, the thesis could be summarised
as ‘facilitating rapid curriculum renewal in engineering
education through developing a framework for transitioning
to education for sustainable development’.
Context
of Research Field
There
are a number of well documented examples in recent
history, where societal ‘development' has involved
significant risk denial; of poverty in the 1950s,
of causes of HIV transmission in the 1960s, of smoking
being harmful in the 1970s, and of negative impacts
to our planet's biosphere from the scale of industrial
pollution, from the 1980s through to the beginning
of the 21 st Century. Dealing with risk is something
that all human civilisations have previously faced;
some survived and some did not. An historical consideration
of civilisations past (Diamond 2005) clearly shows
that humanity takes time to acknowledge, accept and
then deal with issues that have significant ramifications
on daily life, particularly those issues that seem
to strike at the core of our values and sense of self.
Since
the launch of former US Vice President Al Gore's film
An Inconvenient Truth (Gore 2006) , the UK
Stern Review (Stern 2006) , and various reports
from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
there is now unprecedented global discussion on how
to achieve significant reductions to greenhouse gas
emissions while meeting the escalating demand for
energy, food, water, and goods and services. Even
the recent release of a range of sceptical documentaries
and publications have been systematically shown to
be misleading in methodology and information and incorrect
in conclusions, potentially biased by affiliations
and ties to sources of economic benefit.
The
2007 launch of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report
in April (IPCC 2007) effectively ended debate concerning
key aspects of the science of climate change providing
an ‘unequivocal' link between climate change and current
human activities, especially the burning of fossil
fuels, deforestation and land clearing, the use of
synthetic greenhouse gases, and decomposition of wastes
from landfill. James Hansen from NASA, one of the
world's leading scientists and members of the IPCC
states, ‘ The question is, what is the level of
global warming that would constitute dangerous climate
change? We wrote an article in about the year 2000
in which we argued that 1 degree Celsius additional
warming might be OK, but 2 or 3 degrees is not. But
what's now become clear is that maybe 1 degree Celsius
[additional to 2000] is dangerous, because
already we're seeing on West Antarctica a net loss
of ice and the ocean is warming and it is beginning
to melt the ice shelves. The other change that has
occurred, as many people predicted, is that China
and India , the developing world, have increased their
emissions at a significant rate in the last decade.
So it really is becoming more urgent ' (Hansen
2006) .
The
report warned that if no action was taken, climate
change would affect Australia in a number of significant
ways including intensification of water security problems
by 2030 in southern and eastern Australia from reduced
precipitation and increased evaporation. Significant
loss of biodiversity is projected to occur by 2020
in some ecologically-rich sites including the Great
Barrier Reef and Queensland Wet Tropics, with Kakadu
wetlands, south-west Australia , and alpine areas
also at risk. Ongoing coastal development and population
growth in areas such as Cairns and Southeast Queensland
are also projected to exacerbate risks from sea-level
rise and increases in the severity and frequency of
storms and coastal flooding by 2050. Agriculture and
forestry production is projected to decline over much
of southern and eastern Australia by 2030, due to
increased drought and fire. The IPCC report concludes
(emphasis added), ‘[ Australia has ] substantial
adaptive capacity due to well-developed economies
and scientific and technical capabilities, but there
are considerable constraints to implementation and
major challenges from changes in extreme events. Natural
systems have limited adaptive capacity'.
However,
in An Inconvenient Truth , Gore cautions
about human nature and its inevitable reaction when
faced with the significance of the potential risk
from over-pollution of our biosphere; either that
of ‘denial' or ‘despair' (Gore 2006) , neither of
which results in action. Although there is a rapidly
emerging consensus on the issues and opportunities
facing humanity in relation to climate change and
sustainable development, it is important to acknowledge
the need for experts in the field to provide rigorous
answers for the rest of society, to questions like:
•
Is there scientific consensus on the specific pollution
that would need to be targeted for reduction first
to maximise the positive outcomes of our efforts,
and then what should be considered next?
•
Is there scientific and engineering consensus on our
capacity to target such pollution reduction with the
principles, knowledge and application experience we
now have or are now acquiring?
•
Is there economic and business consensus on our capacity
to target reductions of specific pollutants in a manner
that does not threaten our global economy?
•
Is there political consensus on our capacity to design
and deliver policy and instruments to assist industry
and business make the required changes without threatening
the stability, security and growth of countries?
•
Is there academic consensus of our capacity to incorporate
research and teaching on how to effectively target
such pollution across professional and vocational
education in time to actually have an impact on practice?
If
it is possible to show that these answers are emerging
and well established, together with providing clear
and rigorous responses to the concerns of those sceptical
about the need to change, then there may be the opportunity
for a significant transformation of modern society.
If stakeholders could be enabled to undertake the
required actions in an appropriate timeframe, then
the outcome might be a global community of industrialised
nations that enjoy a quality of life within the earth's
carrying capacity. This is an inspirational goal requiring
a shift from denial and despair, to hope and action.
It will require innovation and creativity with the
global community working together in new ways. Such
inspiration is evident in the rapid increase in interest
in practical solutions from around the world over
the last decade. This is expected to continue as governments,
companies and institutions in Australia and around
the world commit to targets of reducing emissions
to the order of 60 percent by 2050 (Smith and Hargroves
2007).
The
IPCC reports and the Stern Review strongly advocate
a dual-track approach to dealing with climate change,
comprising both mitigation and adaptation efforts;
indeed much needs to be achieved through mitigation
over a short span of time, to ensure that the resultant
levels are something that the world can indeed adapt
to. According to Hargroves (2007), ‘Inevitably
society will need to adapt to a new climate regime
as a result of a rapid increase in greenhouse emissions
since the industrial revolution. There is a parallel
and crucial requirement to focus on 1) reducing emissions
of greenhouse gases and therefore stabilising the
corresponding increases in global temperature; and
2) to prepare for an inevitable adaptation by society
and the environment to an altered climate regime,
assuming appropriate stabilisation is achieved'.
Dealing
with mitigation and adaptation for climate change
affects the full spectrum of professions. Consider
for example the variety of skills and knowledge needed
to: innovate technical solutions to greenhouse gas
reductions and to redesign our built environments;
to deliver sustainable food production and water supply;
to implement disaster relief; to conserve biodiversity
and develop plans for species preservation; to legally
enforce pollution measures and to develop policy incentives
for harnessing the power of the market; to manage
borders and migration. Clearly, such an effort to
equip society with essential knowledge and skills
is an unprecedented task, in which education plays
a critical role.
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