Leveraging Finnish engineering education for sustainable development : from marginal to mainstream

Abstract

This research aimed to identify obstacles to mainstreaming education for sustainable development in Finnish engineering education. Identifying and removing such barriers can help future engineering students gain a holistic understanding of sustainability challenges and the competencies necessary to address them.

Education for sustainable development (ESD) helps learners develop their sustainability agencies by becoming more aware of present sustainability challenges and understanding how these endanger the well–being of the current and future inhabitants of the Earth. Ultimately the increased awareness and understanding result in empowered sustainability agency. These are vital components of the decision–making situations typical in the engineering profession. It is imperative that engineers in every engineering field gain an understanding of sustainability, yet currently ESD in engineering education is far from mainstream.

This research focused on identifying elements of engineering education that hinder the mainstreaming of ESD, suggesting methods for quantifying the current level of ESD engagement and identifying activities that have the potential to support the mainstreaming of ESD in engineering education. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were deployed to investigate the topic.

Mainstreaming ESD in engineering education still requires effort and active engagement. The findings indicate development potential in the steering of integration of ESD content into curricula and teaching, leaving the integration of ESD content or competencies up to individual lecturers. While many are motivated to promote their students’ sustainability competencies, such autonomy is not likely to lead to mainstreaming. Due to the lack of support in the form of clearly worded ESD objectives in course descriptions, even those lecturers who have the motivation to integrate sustainability topics into their engineering courses are mired in terminological ambiguity. Fortunately, the results also show promise as learning about certain topics, specifically life cycle assessment, can stimulate sustainability competence development. Identifying obstacles in engineering education can also aid the recognition and removal of such obstacles in other educational fields.