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Purpose: Environmental sustainability and social contexts are becoming increasingly important concepts. The infusion of sustainability and humanitarian engineering (HE) into the academic core curriculum is often challenging. This study aims to provide an understanding of students' perceptions and attitudes toward the incorporation of active learning of sustainability and humanitarian concepts into engineering education. Design/methodology/approach: A project-based sustainability course was developed and offered to engineering undergraduates. A HE international field experience was also provided to students as an extracurricular activity. Pre- and post-surveys were conducted to assess students' perceptions and attitudes toward sustainability and HE project learning experience. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine the statistical significance of the results and demographic influences on students' experiences. Findings: Both project-based and international field learning experiences positively influenced the students' perceptions of sustainable practices, social change and appreciation of the engineering profession. Multidisciplinary learning also helped students become more motivated, engage in sustainability-promoted activities and community work and improve their social interactions. Students gained practical engineering skills that they did not typically receive in traditional classroom settings and recognized the global and social responsibilities that are core to sustainable development education. Originality/value: The study demonstrates a mixed undergraduate educational model in which students acquired sustainability concepts through a project-based engineering course and practiced social responsibility through international HE projects. The findings help engineering educators understand students' perceptions toward sustainability and HE, providing insight into effective curriculum design and strategic inclusion of social responsibility in traditional engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: An analysis of the extent to which sustainability is present in the syllabi, project briefs, report templates, and student final reports of the three Iberian European project semester (EPS) providers, over a five-year period. Background: EPS is a one-semester capstone project framework that adopts project-based learning and multicultural, multidisciplinary teamwork. Educating engineers for sustainable development requires fostering critical and ethical thinking and a desire for equity, solidarity and preservation of natural resources, and cultural and genetic diversity. Existing engineering capstone design programs emphasize solving real world problems, hands-on training, and soft skills, but few focus on sustainability aspects of engineering design. The three Iberian EPS providers adopt project-based learning and teamwork methodologies, promoting the development of transversal skills and addressing sustainability in a multicultural and multidisciplinary background. Intended Outcomes: To show that the three Iberian EPS providers follow these recommendations and contribute to raising students’ awareness of sustainable development. Application Design: The proposed sustainability learning assessment method collects evidence from syllabi, project briefs, report templates, and final reports to extract faculty and student perspectives. The sustainability-related terms collected were processed into word cloud format, allowing a simple and intuitive interpretation of students’ understanding of sustainability, and in co-occurrence network format, to understand if sustainability has a pervasive or confined presence within the reports. Findings: Iberian EPS faculty and students are aware of the social, economic, and environmental impact of their projects, in terms of quality of life, social responsibility, the use of resources, and environmentally friendly technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess particular student outcomes when design thinking was integrated into an environmental engineering course. The literature is increasingly promoting design thinking for addressing societal and environmental sustainability engineering challenges. Design thinking is a human-centered approach that identifies needs upfront. Design/methodology/approach: In an undergraduate engineering course, Design for the Environment, students have begun to obtain hands-on experience in applying design thinking to sustainability challenges. This case study investigates the association between the use of design thinking and student creativity with sustainability design solutions. Student perspectives on their own creativity and future sustainable design practices as a result of the course were also investigated. Findings: The findings were favorable for design thinking, being associated with a significant difference and medium-to-large effect with regards to solution novelty. A qualitative analysis showed a positive association between design thinking and students' perceptions of their creativity and future anticipated sustainability practices. Using a content analysis of reflective writings, students' application of design thinking was assessed for comprehensiveness and correctness. A two-week introductory design-thinking module and significant use of in-class active learning were the course elements that most notably impacted students' use of design thinking. Practical implications: This case study preliminarily demonstrates that application of design thinking within an environmental engineering course may be associated with beneficial outcomes related to creativity and sustainability. Originality/value: A review of the literature did not uncover studies of the use of design thinking for undergraduate socio-environmental challenges to promote creativity and sustainable-practices outcomes, although the literature has been calling for the marrying of these two areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]