Teaching Sustainability to Chemical Engineers: Pedagogical and Practical Aspects
Educating chemical engineers for coming challenges
Teaching Methods, Techniques & Modules (T6-2)
Keywords: education; sustainability; complex systems; life cycle thinking; decision making
The practice of teaching sustainability to chemical engineers requires a fundamental shift in thinking; one which takes us beyond technical, deterministic, and reductionist perspectives alone, to one which embraces complexity and requires us to engage with the uncertain behaviour of physical systems, and the (often) irrational behaviour and conflicting responses of social systems, across a multitude of scales, and over extended time periods, At the same time, we are challenged to do so within a curriculum which has not changed substantially since the advent of the “unit operations” approach to process problems, despite its bourgeoning content.
This paper draws together a range of perspectives from our collected teaching experience over some 10 years, both at the University of Sydney, and the University of Surrey.
From a pedagogical perspective, we draw analogies between natural systems and their underlying thermodynamics, and the sustainability of industrial systems. This enables us to critique the plethora of so called “frameworks” and “tools” for sustainability assessment. Thereafter, having characterised industrial systems from a life-cycle perspective in terms of their drivers, constraints and behaviour, we develop tools and approaches for their management. These address decision making across a range of spatial and temporal scales, and allow a focus on discrete industries, or networks of industries. Here, we seek to convey an understanding of the practice of decision making in terms of its problem structuring and problem analysis elements, with due regard to the philosophical and psychological / cognitive dimensions of problem framing; their impact on preference elicitation and valuation; and management science / process engineering approaches to information management, including uncertainty.
At a practical level, we have endeavoured to entrench such thinking across the undergraduate curriculum. At the University of Sydney, this means core courses in the formative second and third years of a four year curriculum, with significant broadening courses offered as elective units of study in the final year. This structure serves to reinforce key concepts and provide a consistent context within which other aspects of the curriculum are developed. In general, all the material is offered in a problem-based mode of delivery, with significant opportunity for students to engage in both oral and written debate. Students elect (in significant numbers) to pursue this material through their honours-level theses, in research mode.
In our view, the approach detailed in this paper sets out a trans-disciplinary approach to the teaching of sustainability, which builds on the formative elements of Chemical Engineering, but extends these by robust consideration of the social dimensions of complex systems. In practice, this amounts to a more participatory, case-study driven, and action oriented curriculum content, with more positive learning outcomes.
Presented Monday 17, 15:40 to 16:00, in session Teaching Methods, Techniques & Modules (T6-2).
