Incorporation of Sustainability Concepts into the Engineering Core Program by Adopting a Micro Curriculum Approach: A Case Study in Saudi Arabia

Muhammad Waqar Ashraf and Faisal Alanezi
Additional contact information
Muhammad Waqar Ashraf: Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Alkhobar 31952, Saudi Arabia
Faisal Alanezi: Department of Management Information Systems, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Alkhobar 31952, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: Higher education institutions are increasingly pursuing sustainable development goals in engineering and technology education. The concepts related to operations, production, and consumption continue to gain importance and significance for engineering students. In the engineering profession, the incorporation of sustainability means integrating environmental, economic, and social factors into the evaluation of design processes, products, and services. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an engineering program that along with the technical content, also fosters a critical sense regarding the social and environmental aspects of the field. The current status of sustainability education in engineering programs offered in Saudi universities is not very promising. In this paper, we explore the use of existing university curricula to incorporate sustainability elements into engineering education and training. Sustainability concepts were introduced into selected courses by using a micro-curriculum approach. Moreover, a standalone course is also introduced. We observed that this approach has been successful in integrating sustainability into the engineering curriculum. We recommend that such an approach be used to develop sustainability awareness in engineering programs.

Keywords: sustainability; education; engineering; micro-curriculum; PMU (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2901/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2901/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:7:p:2901-:d:341813

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().