Integrating Sustainability in a PBL Environment for Electronics Engineering

In the past decades, education for sustainable development (ESD) has obtained increasing recognition as a general subject in higher education (HE). Institutions worldwide have had attention to the integration of sustainability into the curricula, and on the conceptual level problem based learning (PBL) has been put forward as a promising pedagogical model and emerged as an opportunity to implement sustainability successfully. Due to the almost forty years of experience in PBL, a case study was carried out at Aalborg University, Denmark to excerpt their experience of integrating sustainability in a problem based learning environment. Three electronics engineering project modules were selected as example and empirically supported by constructed interviews with staff and document analysis of selected material. The findings were analysed with a systems approach and presented with reference to three difference factors: input, throughput and output factors; whereas reflections on the study is presented in the final part. It is found that the PBL practices in the modules comprehend the integration of sustainability in engineering education without compensating technical and engineering competencies as the core contents.