Engaging engineering students in socially responsible design using global projects

ABSTRACT

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 of how concepts from Socially Responsible Design (SRD), Appropriate Technology (AT) and Human-Centred Design (HCD) integrated into a pedagogical model (Locale) focusing student effort on the socio-cultural, technical, economic and environmental aspects. Drawing on data from ten years of course operation the analysis identifies three distinct variants. Re-examining all 186 design projects using a new metric based on the pedagogical model (Locale) revealed an upward trend in the socio-cultural and economic appropriateness of the solutions without any diminution of technical suitability. Thus, the paper provides a new approach for designing and evaluating PBL courses specifically focused on social and sustainable design.

KEYWORDS:

• Socially responsible design
• sustainable design
• project-based learning
• product design engineering
• case study

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge the clients, who provided project briefs and fieldwork; Wold Vision Australia, Sangam Craft Platform, Honey Bee Network India and SRISTI India. We also acknowledge the creative work of the students especially the image examples used in this paper, from the Product Design Engineering course at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Bissett-Johnson

Katherine Bissett-Johnson lectures into the Industrial Design and Product Design Engineering programs at Swinburne University. Her primary interest is in how Industrial Design can lead the world to a more environmentally and socially responsible future. Katherine has a long track record of linking Universities with real world projects, locally and globally, in both her previous position at RMIT University and at Swinburne. She has developed design strategies and tools for Industrial Design and Product Design Engineering, looking specifically at the interaction between user and product since completing her Master of Arts in the early 90s. Additionally her research interests span the domains of Public Good Design, Strategic & Transformative Design, and Sustainability. Katherine’s industry experience includes working as a designer at several of Melbourne's premier design consultancies, developing high volume commercial products for both local and international clients.

David F. Radcliffe

Dr. Radcliffe has retired from Purdue and is now the Kamyar Haghighi Head of Engineering Education and Epistemology Professor Emeritus of Engineering Education. Dr. Radcliffe received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Queensland, and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from Strathclyde University in Scotland. His research focuses on the nature of engineering as a profession; how it is perceived and practiced, how it is learned especially outside the classroom, and how an engineering identity is shaped. Within this overall theme he has conducted research on the practice of engineering design thinking in a variety of industry settings, the creation and sharing of design knowledge in large and small firms with an emphasis on design for sustainability, engineering education as a complex system, the design and evaluation of learning environments, and on ways to foster distributed communities of research practice in engineering education. This research is intrinsically multidisciplinary and draws on methodologies from the humanities, social and behavioural sciences and involves collaboration with anthropologists, learning scientists, librarians, designers and architects. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia; a Chartered Professional Engineer; Fellow of the American Society of Engineering Education; Fellow of European Society of Engineering Education; and Past President, Australasian Association for Engineering Education.