By Dr Tracy BhamraDepartment of Design and Technology

Loughborough University

Where did it come from

• The LTSN Engineering (now The Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre) Mini Project Scheme provided funding to develop the toolbox

• Project ran from July to September 2004• Aimed to develop a CD-Rom tool box for teaching sustainable design to

Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Design Engineering, Industrial Design and Product Design Students.

Project Objectives

• To develop a “how-to” guide for preparing a module in the area of Sustainable Design.• To define a set of key learning objectives for Sustainable Design.• To identify key Sustainability concepts & develop activities and resource material to

facilitate their understanding.• To outline the focus and content for a range of suggested lectures, tutorials and

seminars which meet key learning objectives and can be adapted to suit different group sizes.

• To provide example PowerPoint presentations, activity sheets and supporting documents to aid lecture preparation.

• To provide links to key on-line resources

The Need• In 2000 Forum for the Future published “The Engineer of the 21st Century” report

giving a number of recommendations for the way Engineering and the Education of Engineers should change to meet the challenge of Sustainability.

• One recommendation was that “by 2005 100% of engineering courses should have integrated a “sustainability syllabus” into the 1st and 2nd year, and be assessed to ensure they reflect this learning in their final year design project”.

• In their follow-on report in 2003 they found that there were very few examples of where this was happening.

• One of the key issues identified by Forum for Future was the lack of competence and skills amongst teaching staff in the area of sustainable development.

The Need• Sustainability generally very new subject within engineering and

design departments• Very few academics have experience in these areas• Expectation that sustainability should be covered in the

curriculum of all subjects• Consequently potential difficulties for academics in developing

material to teach• The tool box aims to address this by providing a resource to

help the understanding of the issues behind Sustainable Development and its application in the area of design.

The Team

• Dr Tracy Bhamra, Senior Lecturer.• Dr Vicky Lofthouse, Research Fellow.• Team has over 17 years of research experience in the field of

Sustainable Design.• Experience of developing undergraduate and postgraduate modules in

Sustainable Design for both Engineers and Designers.• Worked within Engineering & Design Departments• Taught at other Institutions as guest lecturers

The Solution

• Feed the results of our research into Sustainable Design into development of course material

• Condense our experience of course and module development into a useful tool box for other academics

• Encourage others to begin to integrate issues of sustainability and sustainable design into their courses

The Educational Approach• Trying to force-fit aspects of sustainability into current curricula often

presents a number of problems• These have not been addressed by the tool box itself but it does try to

flag up some issues in particular– The inter-disciplinary nature of the subject – Need a dynamic process of learning to enable a 'real' understanding of

sustainable development – Sustainable development has been described as being too abstract and therefore

it is important to promote an educational philosophy that connects everyday living to the more generic policy objectives

The Educational Approach• The scale of response required for sustainable development points

toward solutions, embracing individual, as well as group, motivation and accountability.

• This level of adaptation necessitates people to think and act differently. • People therefore need to be made more aware of the issues and given

the skills with which to deal with such change. • Education is the key to encouraging different perspectives across the

whole lifecycle of products and systems (supply and demand), and that this goal requires a shift away from current educational practice.

The Educational Approach• Sterling (2001) addresses the different approaches and values of transmissive

(transfer of information to learner) and transformative (learner constructing and owning meaning) methodologies ‘that go beyond teaching method to also reflect philosophy and purpose of education

• Best practice design education shares some key characteristics with a transformative education approach

– creative, solutions-focused learning; – self-directed team work; – learning by doing (commonly ‘live’ projects); – iterative refinement and reflection; – drawing from a range of disciplines: e.g. mechanics; electronics;

manufacturing; marketing; sociology; ergonomics; and history, to inform the outputs that emerge as a result of design-based activity.

Transmissive Transformative

instructive constructive

instrumental intrinsic

training education

teaching learning

communication of message construction of meaning

information focus appropriate knowledge

central control local ownership

product oriented process oriented

problem solving problem reframing

linear iterative and responsive

facts and skills concepts and capacity building

Transmissive Vs Transformative Education (Sterling 2001)