2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper describes the redesign and implementation of a course that introduces engineering students to social entrepreneurship within the context of sustainability, at University X. Throughout the semester, the course focuses on three overarching topics: the concept of wicked problems, the concept of sustainability and climate change (as an example of a wicked problem), and social entrepreneurship. The author took responsibility of this course in 2015, and this paper focuses on the redesign of this course since that time.

This course is an elective that is mostly taken by junior and senior engineering students of all engineering disciplines at the university. Throughout the semester, students are introduced to entrepreneurship topics, the entrepreneurial process, and the business model canvas, and work in teams of three to four students on what will be their final deliverable at the end of the semester: a business plan for a social enterprise of their creation, that addresses a sustainability/climate issue.

The course has been very successful in its implementation, with consistently positive comments from students. This paper provides an overview of the course, course topics, and course assignments. The course places a strong emphasis on the positive impact businesses and entrepreneurial pursuits can have on addressing societal problems, and in particular on addressing climate change, and highlights the positive role engineers can have on humanity. These foci have been found to be especially attractive to underrepresented groups in engineering.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the course and assess its effectiveness both in terms of implementation and in terms of student learning. Specifically, this paper will: (1) describe the course objectives, course topics, and course assignments, (2) describe what has worked well and identify areas for improvement, (3) provide recommendations for other faculty interested in implementing a similar course or incorporating these themes into already-existing courses, and (4) summarize students’ perceptions of and learning within the course. To evaluate student learning and feedback on the course, a final reflection assignment, as well as comments within teaching evaluation surveys, both completed by students at the end of the semester, were qualitatively analyzed, and the common themes are included in this paper.

Because detailed information about the course and course assignments, as well as suggestions for improvement, will be provided, this paper will be especially relevant to faculty who are (1) interested in incorporating activities to teach about entrepreneurship, (2) interested in teaching about sustainability, and/or (3) interested in teaching about the positive impact that entrepreneurial pursuits can have to address humanitarian issues.