2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering is essential to progress towards a sustainable future. Achieving this goal is
supported in part by the profession’s fundamental mission: to address basic human needs and
improve quality of life. However, analysis shows that when the preparation of engineers at
universities focuses on traditional and technical skills, such a curriculum is insufficient for
preparing graduates to tackle current global challenges, such as climate change, poverty, and
the humanitarian crisis. As with the Washington Accord, engineering accreditation bodies
increasingly recognise that these challenges demand a new kind of engineer equipped with a
new set of competencies and capacities. In some cases, this has led to evolution, if not
revolution, in engineering curricula as the social compact comes to the fore. This study
examines what is happening and which initiatives are promoted to embed sustainability
considerations in two civil engineering curriculums: one aligned with the Washington Accord
(in Australia) and one not (from Colombia).
The study proceeds from the understanding that while the volume and breadth of research about
ensuring engineering education addresses sustainability well have increased rapidly during this
century, there have been few empirical studies beyond a single institution's case. Furthermore,
many case studies have also been limited to documenting changes in course maps or the explicit
curriculum, i.e., what is overt in the documentation. In light of this, this research presents
findings from a doctoral thesis that analyses educators’ and students’ experiences of the explicit
and implicit—which is learnt from the organisation, intentions, attitudes and behaviours of the
educators, for example, and what is not taught respectively—to provide a richer picture of what
is understood and experienced as the intended and enacted curriculum.
In general, findings suggest that accreditation systems (such as the Washington Accord) highly
influence the adoption of educational responses towards sustainability in the civil engineering
curriculum. The accreditation requirements ensure that sustainability is addressed in specific
discipline-based units, and to a greater extent, in the capstone unit. Barriers, however, occur in
both cases because sustainability considerations are not scaffolded. The cross-case analysis
also shows that while project-based environments were the most common type of educational
responses implemented to strengthen students’ sustainability-based knowledge and skills,
findings suggested projects do not always encourage the same complexity of problems and,
consequently, do not generate the same level of learning outcomes. Results also reveal that
hidden-curriculum responses were decisive for students to embrace new sustainability
perspectives. Finally, the research also provides insight into future curriculum strategies for
developing engineering education for sustainability.