Student Recognition, Use, and Understanding of Engineering for One Planet Competencies and Outcomes in Project-based Learning

Addressing local-to-global crises at the intersection of environmental protection, climate change, sustainability, and social justice will require new skills and competencies in practicing engineers as well as the ability to learn from and work with non-engineers in society. Project-based learning (PjBL) provides one approach by which students can learn how to creatively tackle important open-ended problems in the world. We examine the impact of a second-year PjBL course within The Polytechnic School's (TPS) Engineering program at Arizona State University's on students' understanding of environmentally and socially responsible engineering. We used a survey approach to collect fixed and open-ended responses from 122 students. Collected data was analyzed through the lens of a newly developed framework called Engineering for One Planet (EOP). Our analyses show that the PjBL course had a moderate to large impact on student competencies that comprise the EOP framework. We believe the EOP framework can be considered as a guiding framework in designing courses and curriculum to better prepare students for future engineering work.