Abstract
Designers and engineers have continually and simultaneously initiated, responded and adapted to economic, social and environmental change and challenges since practice began. Although they developed beneficial products, systems and services, they were also pivotal to the linear economy and directly and indirectly contributed to environmental and social damage. Professionals are now being encouraged to address these problems through their practice. Design and engineering education was established to support industry by producing suitably prepared graduates; consequently pedagogy has reflected professional practice and encouraged students to develop positive and optimum solutions to challenges. However students and society as a whole are now facing unprecedented global environmental and societal problems that are affecting their behaviour, mental health and ability to respond to these problems. Therefore there is an urgent need to rethink and adapt current pedagogic practice in order to mitigate these issues, to ensure that sustainability remains core to design and engineering courses and that graduates transfer and embed this knowledge in the workplace. This paper first considers how designers and engineers have adapted practice in response to various drivers since the beginning of the professions; it then describes the role of general design and engineering education and that of design and education for sustainability. The final section describes an innovative strategy – reverse psychology - and how it has been adapted to address these emerging challenges; the outcomes and impact of the approach are also illustrated through a case study and the reasons for success to date are analysed and discussed.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 10 Sept 2021 |
Event | 23rd International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education - Duration: 9 Oct 2021 → … |
Conference
Conference | 23rd International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education |
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Period | 9/10/21 → … |
Keywords
- Education for Sustainability, reverse psychology, deep learning