Author: Jing Zhao (University of West of England). 

Topic: Investigating the decarbonisation transition. 

Type: Teaching. 

Relevant disciplines: Civil; Structural; Chemical; Mechanical; Electrical; Computing. 

Keywords: Decarbonisation, Housing, Built environment; Net zero, Carbon emissions; Energy efficiency; Sustainable energy; Local community; Curriculum; Higher education; Sustainability; Assessment. 
 
Sustainability competency: Systems thinking; Anticipatory; Collaboration; Self-awareness; Normative.

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses two of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): The Engineer and Society (acknowledging that engineering activity can have a significant societal impact) and Engineering Practice (the practical application of engineering concepts, tools and professional skills). To map this resource to AHEP outcomes specific to a programme under these themes, access AHEP 4 here and navigate to pages 30-31 and 35-37.  

Related SDGs: SDG 4 (Quality education); SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy); SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure); SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities). 
 
Reimagined Degree Map Intervention: More real-world complexity; Active pedagogies and mindsets; Authentic assessment.

Educational level: Beginner. 

 

Learning and teaching notes: 

The purpose of this exercise is to encourage students to think in a socio-technical perspective of delivering extreme low carbon housing (e.g. Passivhaus), in order to support the occupants in adapting to new technologies and low-carbon lifestyle, shifting the paradigm from building isolated energy efficient homes to forming low-carbon communities.  

Learners have the opportunity to: 

Teachers have the opportunity to: 

 

Supporting resources: 

  

Terminology: 

Before beginning the activity, teachers and learners will want to become familiar with the following concepts. 

 

Activity overview:  

Students will role-play the post occupancy stage of inhabiting a Passivhaus home by playing different characters with different priorities (and personalities). Students will need to learn what new technologies and features are included in Passivhaus and what difficulties/problems the residents might encounter, and at the same time familiarise themselves with contemporary research on energy behaviour, performance gap, rebound effect, as well as broader issues in decarbonisation transition such as social justice and low carbon community building. Through two community meetings, the community manager needs to resolve the residents’ issues, support the residents in learning and adapting their behaviours, and devising an engagement plan to allow the residents to form a self-governed low-carbon community. 

 

Step one: Preparation prior to class: 

Provide a list of reading materials on ‘performance gap’, ‘rebound effect’, ‘adaptive comfort’, energy behaviour, usability and control literature, as well as on Passivhaus and examples of low-carbon features and technologies involved to get a sense of what difficulties residents might encounter.  

To prepare for the role-play activity, assign students in advance to take on different roles (randomly or purposefully), or let them self-assign based on their interests. They should try to get a sense of their character’s values, lifestyle, priorities, abilities. Where no information is available, students can imagine the experiences and perspectives of the residents. Students assigned to be community managers or building associations will prepare for the role-play by learning about the Passivhaus system and prepare ways to support occupants’ learning and behaviour adaptation. The goal is to come up with an engagement plan, facilitate the residents to form their own community knowledge base and peer support. (Considering 1. Who are you engaging (types of residents and their characteristics); 2. How are you engaging (level of engagement, types of communication; 3. When are you engaging (frequency of engagement) 

 

Step two: In class, starting by giving prompts for discussions: 

Below are several prompts for discussion questions and activities that can be used. Each prompt could take up as little or as much time as the educator wishes, depending on where they want the focus of the discussion to be. 

 

  1. Discuss what support the residents might need in post occupancy stage? Who should provide (/pay for) the support? For how long? Any examples or best practice that they might know? Does support needs to be tailored to specific groups of people? (see extra prompts at the end for potential difficulties)
  2. Discuss what the risks are involved in residents not being sufficiently supported to adapt their behaviour when living in a low-carbon house or Passivhaus? (reflect on literature)
  3. Discuss what are the barriers to domestic behaviour change? What are the barriers to support the residents in changing behaviour and to build low-carbon community? 

 

Step three: Class 1 Role Play  

Prior to the Role Play, consider the following prompts: 

Consider the variety of residents and scenarios:

Their varying demographics, physical and mental abilities, lifestyle and priorities. The following characters are examples. Students can make up their own characters. Students can choose scenarios of  

1) social housing or; 

2) private owner-occupier  

Social housing tenants will likely have a more stretched budget, higher unemployment rate and a bigger proportion of disabled or inactive population. They will have different priorities, knowledge and occupancy patterns than private owner-occupier, and will be further disadvantaged during decarbonisation transition ​(Zhao, 2023). ​They will need different strategies and motivations to be engaged. The characters of residents could be chosen from a variety of sources (e.g. RIBA Brief generator), or based on students’ own experiences. Each character needs to introduce themselves in a succinct manner. 

 

Other stakeholders involved include: 

They are role-specific characters that don’t necessarily need a backstory. They are there to listen, take notes, give advice and come up with an engagement plan. 

 

Consider the post occupancy in different stages: 

  1. Prior to move-in 
  2. Move-in day 
  3. The initial month 
  4. Change of season  
  5. Quarterly energy audit meeting 

 

Consider the difficulties the residents might encounter: 

 

Consider the different engagement levels of the residents: 

 

The role-play consists of two community meetings over two classes. The first meeting is held at two weeks after move-in date. The second meeting at 6 months of occupancy. The meeting should include a variety of residents on one side, and the ‘chair’ of the meeting on the other. (Consider the accessibility and inclusivity of the meetings as when and where those will be held). In the first meeting, residents will get to know each other, ask questions about house-related problems occurred in the first two weeks, voice concerns. Community managers/council members will chair the meeting, take notes and make plans for support. The teacher should act as a moderator to guide students through the session. First the teacher will briefly highlight the issue up for discussion, then pass it to the ‘chair’ of the meeting. The ‘chair’ of the meeting will open the meeting with the purpose of the meeting – to support the residents and facilitate a self-governed low carbon community. They then ask the residents to feedback on their experience and difficulties. At the end of the first meeting, the group of students will need to co-design an engagement plan, including setting agendas for the second meeting in a 6-month interval (but in reality will happen in the second class) and share the plan with the residents and the class. The teacher and class will comment on the plan. The group will revise the plan after class so it’s ready for the second meeting. 

 

Step four: Homework tasks: Revising the plan 

The students will use the time before the second class to revise the plan and prepare for challenges, problems occurred over the 6-months period. 

Optional wild cards could be used as unpredictable events occur between the first and second meeting. Such events include: 

 

Step five: Class 2 Role play 

The second meeting in the second class will either be chaired by community managers/council members, or be chaired by a few residents, monitored by community managers/council members. The second meeting begins the same way. The students playing residents should research/imagine problems occurred during the 6 months period (refer to literature), and what elements of the engagement plan devised at the end of the first meeting worked and what hasn’t worked. The ‘chair’ of the meeting will take notes, ask questions or try to steer the conversations. At the end of the second meeting, the ‘chair’ of the meeting will reflect on the support and engagement plan, revise it and make a longer-term plan for the community to self-govern and grow. At the end of this class, the whole class could then engage in a discussion about the outcome of the meetings. Teachers could focus on an analysis of how the process went, a discussion about broader themes of social justice, community building, comfort, lifestyle and value system. Challenge students to consider their personal biases and position at the outset and reflect on those positions and biases at the end of the meeting. 

 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters. 
 
 
To view a plain text version of this resource, click here to download the PDF.

Author: Aditya Johri (George Mason University). 

Topic: Sustainability implications in mobility and technology development.   

Type: Teaching. 

Relevant disciplines: Electrical, Robotics, Civil, Mechanical, Computing. 

Keywords: Design; Accessibility; Technology Policy; Electric Vehicles; Mobility, Circularity; AHEP; Sustainability; Higher education.
 
Sustainability competency: Normative; Self-awareness; Strategic; Critical thinking.

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses two of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): The Engineer and Society (acknowledging that engineering activity can have a significant societal impact) and Engineering Practice (the practical application of engineering concepts, tools and professional skills). To map this resource to AHEP outcomes specific to a programme under these themes, access AHEP 4 here and navigate to pages 30-31 and 35-37.  

Related SDGs: SDG 4 (Quality education); SDG 9 (Industry, innovation, and infrastructure), SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production); SDG 13 (Climate action).   
 
Reimagined Degree Map Intervention: Active pedagogies and mindset development.

Educational aim: The objective of this activity is to provide students with an understanding of the complexity of technology development and different considerations that need to be made by stakeholders in the design and implementation of a technology. The activity is set up as a role-play where students are assigned different roles as members of an expert panel providing feedback on the use of E-Scooters on a college campus. 

Educational level: Beginner. 

 

Learning and teaching notes: 

Learners have the opportunity to: 

Teachers have the opportunity to: 

 

Supporting resources: 

Several different ethical frameworks, codes, or guidelines can be provided to students to prepare for the discussion or to reflect upon during their discussion depending on the students’ disciplinary composition. Here are a few examples:  

 

Background readings and resources: 

One of the goals of this exercise is to motivate students to undertake their own research on the topic to prepare for the activity. But it is important to provide them with preliminary material to start their own research. Here are a few useful resources for this case:  

Readings: 

 

Videos: 

 

Role-play instructions: 

  1. Each student is assigned a role a week before the discussion.
  2. Students assigned to the role of Eva Walker serve as the moderator and lead the conversation based on the script below.
  3. The script provided below is there to guide the discussion, but you should leave room for the conversation to flow naturally and allow everyone to contribute.

One way to ensure students are prepared for the discussion is to assign a few questions from the script as a pre-discussion assignment (short answers). Similarly, to ensure students reflect on the discussion, they can be assigned the last question from the script as a post-discussion exercise. They can also be asked specifically about frameworks and concepts related to sustainability.  

 

Role-play scenario narrative and description of roles: 

Eva Walker recently started reporting about on-campus traffic issues for the student newspaper. She would have preferred to do more human-interest stories, but as a new member of the staff who had just moved from intern to full-time, she was happy to get whatever opportunity she could. Eva was studying both journalism and creative writing, and this was her dream on-campus job. She also realised that, even though many stories at first didn’t appear to her as though she would be interested in them, as she dug deeper she eventually found an angle with which she could strongly relate.  

One weekday morning, Eva was working on yet another story on parking woes when Amina Ali, one of the editorial staff members, texted her to say that there had been an accident on campus; she just passed it at the intersection of the library and the recreation building, and it might be worth covering. Eva was at the library, and within no time, reached the spot of the accident.  

When Eva arrived, a police vehicle, an ambulance, and a fire engine were all present at the scene, and near the accident site, an e-scooter lay smashed into a tree. It looked like the rider was sitting in the ambulance and was being treated by the medical staff. A little further away, Eva noticed the police speaking to a young woman in a wheelchair. Although Eva’s first instinct was to try to talk to the police or the medical staff to ascertain what had happened, she realised this probably wasn’t the best moment and she would have to wait until later for the official version of the event.  

She looked around and saw a group of four students leaning against a wall with drinks in their hands. A couple of them were vaping. Eva thought that they looked like they had been here for a while, and she walked over to ask them what had happened. From the account they gave her, it appeared as if the e-scooter rider was coming around the bend at some speed, saw the woman in the wheelchair a little too late to ride past her, and, to avoid hitting her, leapt off his e-scooter and let the vehicle hit the tree. Things happened very quickly and no one was exactly sure about the sequence of events, but this was the rough story she got.  

Later, she called the police department on campus and was able to speak with one of the officers to get an official account. The story was very similar to what she already knew. She did find out that nobody was seriously hurt and that the only injuries were to the e-scooter rider and were taken care of at the scene by the medical staff. When she asked about who was to blame or if any legal action was expected, she was told that there were no laws around the use of helmets or speeding for e-scooters yet and that she should reach out later for more information. Eva wrote up what she had so far, sent it over to the editorial staff, and considered her work done.  

But as she was walking back to her halls of residence that evening, her attention was drawn to the large number of e-scooters parked near the library. As she crossed the central campus, she noticed even more e-scooters lying about the intersections, and there was a litter of them around the residence hall. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed them before. Her attention was drawn today, she thought, because of the accident and also because she saw a good Samaritan remove an e-scooter from the sidewalk, as it was blocking the path of one of the self-driving food delivery robots. It’s a sign, Eva thought, this is what she needs to look for more in her next article, the use of e-scooters on campus.  

Eva recognised that, to write a balanced and informative article, as she had been taught to do, she would have to look at many different aspects of the use of e-scooters as well as look broadly at mobility on campus and the use of battery powered vehicles. She had also recently seen e-bikes on campus and, in addition to the food delivery robots, service robots in one of the buildings that she assumed was either delivering paperwork or mail. The accident had also made her realise that, when it came to mobility, accessibility was something that never crossed her mind but that she now understood was an important consideration. She hoped to learn more about it as her research progressed.  

As background research for the article, Eva started reading up on articles and studies published about e-scooters, e-bikes, and urban mobility and came across a range of concerns that had been raised beyond accessibility. First, there were reports that e-scooters are not as environmentally friendly as many service providers had made them out to be. This is related to the production of the battery as well as the short lifespan of the vehicles, and as of yet, there has been no procedure implemented to reuse them (Pyzyk, 2019). Second, there were reports of littering, where e-scooters are often left on sidewalks and other places where they restrict movement of other vehicles, pedestrians, and in particular, those in wheelchairs (Iannelli, 2021). Finally, it was also clear from the reports that accidents and injuries have increased due to e-scooters, especially since many riders do not wear safety gear and are often careless, even inebriated, as there were little to no regulations (2021). When she approached her editor with an outline for an article, she was advised to do some more reporting by talking with people who could shed more light on the issue.  

After some research, Eva shortlisted the following experts across fields related to e-scooters for an interview, and once she spoke with them, she realised that it would help her if she could get them to have a dialogue and respond to some of the questions that were raised by other experts. Therefore, she decided to conduct a focus group with them so that she achieved her goal of a balanced article and did not misrepresent any expert’s point of view.  

 

Experts/roles for discussion: 

1. Bryan Avery is co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of RideBy, an e-scooter company. RideBy is one of the options available on campus. Born in a small town, Bryan used to ride his bicycle everywhere while growing up, and for him, founding and leading an e-scooter company provided a chance to merge his interests in personal transportation and new forms of energy. He was a chemical engineer by training, and at a time when most of his friends ended up working for big oil companies, Bryan decided to work on alternative fuels and found himself developing expertise and experience with batteries. For most of the software- and mobile device-related development, RideBy outsourced the work and utilised ready-to-configure systems that were available. By only keeping the core device and battery functionality in-house, they could focus on delivering a much stronger product. Overall, he is quite happy with the success of RideBy so far and can’t help but extol the difference it can make for the environment.  

 

2. Abiola Abrams is a professor of transportation engineering and an expert on mobility systems. Her work combines systems engineering, computer science, and data analytics. Her recent research is on urban mobility and micro-mobility services, particularly e-bikes. In her research, Dr. Abrams has looked at a host of topics related to e-bikes, many of which are also applicable to e-scooters, including the optimisation of hubs for availability, common path patterns of users, subscription use models, and the e-waste and end of lifecycle for these vehicles. Increasingly, she has become concerned about the abuse of some of these services, especially in cities that attract a lot of tourists, and about the rough use of the vehicles, so much so that many do not even last for a month. In a new project, she is investigating the effect of e-vehicles on the environment and has found that there is mixed evidence for how much difference battery-operated vehicles will actually make for climate change compared to vehicles that use fossil fuels.  

 

3. Marco Rodrigues works as transportation director for the local county government where the university is based. As part of a recent bilateral international exchange, he got the opportunity to spend time in different cities in Germany to learn about local transportation. He realised very quickly that local transportation was very different in Germany; residents had a range of public, shared options that were missing in the United States. However, he also realised that e-mobility services were being considered across both countries. He investigated this further and found that Germany waited until it could pass some regulations before allowing e-mobility operators to offer services; helmets were mandatory on e-scooters and e-bikes, and riders had to purchase a nominal insurance policy. He also learned that there were strict rules around the sharing of data generated by the vehicles as well as the apps used by riders.  

 

4. Judy Whitehouse is director of infrastructure and sustainability on campus and responsible for planning the long-term development of the campus from a space perspective, but also increasingly from a sustainability dimension. As the number of students has increased, so has the need for more infrastructure, including classrooms and halls of residence. This has also resulted in greater distances to be traveled on campus. Judy regards e-mobility options as a necessary component of campus life and has been a strong supporter for them. Lately, she has been called into meetings with safety and emergency management people discussing the issue of increased accidents on campus and the littering of e-vehicles across the campus. Not only is it bad for living on campus, but it is also bad for optics. A recent photo featured in the campus newspaper was a stark reminder of just how bad it can look. She is further divided on the use of e-scooters due to misgivings about the sustainability of battery use, as new research suggests that manufacturing batteries and disposing them are extremely harmful for the environment.  

 

5. Aaron Schneider heads Campus Mobility, a student interest group focused on autonomous vehicles development and use. The group members come from different degree programmes and are interested in both the technical dimensions of mobile solutions and the policy issues surrounding their implementation. Aaron himself is a computer science student with interests in data science, and with some of his fellow members from the policy school, he has been analysing a range of mobility-related datasets that are publicly available online. Of these, the data on accidents is quite glaring, as the number of accidents in which e-scooters are involved has gone up significantly. Aaron and his friends were intrigued by their findings and approached some of the companies to see if they would share data, but they were disappointed when they could not get access. Although the companies said it was due to privacy reasons, Aaron was not too convinced by that argument. He was also denied access to any internal reports about usage patterns of accidents. Ideally, he would have liked to know what algorithms were used for optimising delivery and access, but he knew he was not going to get that information.  

  

6. Sarah Johnson is the head of accessibility services on campus and is responsible for both technology- and infrastructure-related support for students, faculty, and staff. The growth of the physical campus and the range of technological offerings has significantly increased the workload for her office, and they are really strained in terms of people and expertise. The emphasis from the university leadership is largely on web and IT accessibility, as teaching and other services are shifting quickly online, but Sarah realises that there is still an acute need to provide physical and mobility support to many members of the community. Although all the new buildings are up to code in terms of accessibility, there is still work to be done both for the older buildings and especially for mobility. Campus beautification does not always go along with access. She is also worried about access to devices, as taking part in any campus activity requires not just a computer, but also access to mobile devices that are out of reach economically for many and not easy to use.  

 

Role-play script: 

To help get the dialogues started and based on her prior conversation with the group, Eva has prepared some initial questions:  

  1. What role are you playing and, from your perspective, what do you see as the biggest pros of using e-vehicles, especially e-scooters on campus?
  2. From your perspective, what do you see as the biggest downside of using e-vehicles, especially e-scooters on campus?
  3. Can you confidently say that e-scooters are an environmentally friendly option?
  4. What current accessibility accommodations would be impacted by the use of e-vehicles, and what new, potential accessibility accommodations might arise from increased use of e-vehicles?
  5. Would we be better off waiting for more regulations to come before deploying these vehicles on campus and, if so, what should those regulations look like?
  6. Should we use automatic regulation of speed on the vehicle based on where it is and/or inform authorities if it is violated?
  7. Can we control where it can go or penalise if not put back?
  8. What guidelines do you recommend for e-scooter usage on campus?  

 

Authorship and project information and acknowledgements: The scenarios and roles were conceptualised and written by Aditya Johri. Feedback was provided by Ashish Hingle, Huzefa Rangwala, and Alex Monea, who also collaborated on initial implementation and empirical research. This work is partly supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Awards# 1937950, 2335636, 1954556; USDA/NIFA Award# 2021-67021-35329. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. The research study associated with the project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at George Mason University. 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters. 
 
 
To view a plain text version of this resource, click here to download the PDF.

Authors: Mr. Neil Rogers (Independent Scholar), Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt Ph.D. SFHEA (NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University) 

Topic: Designing a flood warning system to communicate risk. 

Tool type: Teaching. 

Engineering disciplines: Electronic; Energy; Mechanical. 

Keywords: Climate change; Water and sanitation; Renewable energy; Battery Technologies; Recycling or recycled materials; AHEP; Sustainability; Student support; Local community; Environment; Future generations; Risk; Higher education; Assessment; Project brief. 

Sustainability competency: Systems thinking; Anticipatory; Strategic; Integrated problem-solving; Normative.

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses two of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): The Engineer and Society (acknowledging that engineering activity can have a significant societal impact) and Engineering Practice (the practical application of engineering concepts, tools and professional skills). To map this resource to AHEP outcomes specific to a programme under these themes, access AHEP 4 here and navigate to pages 30-31 and 35-37. Potential alignments with AHEP criteria are shown below. 

Related SDGs: SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy); SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). 

Reimagined Degree Map Intervention: More real-world complexity; Active pedagogies and mindset development; Authentic assessment.

Educational level: Intermediate / Advanced. 

 

Learning and teaching notes: 

This resource outlines a project brief that requires an engineer to assess the local area to understand the scale of flooding and the local context. This will highlight how climate change affects everyday life, how water usage is changing and happening on our doorstep.

The project also requires the engineer to be considerate of the needs of a local business and showcases how climate change affects the economy and individual lives, enabling some degree of empathy and compassion to this exercise.

Depending upon the level of the students and considering the needs of modules or learning outcomes, the project could follow either or both of the following pathways: 

 

Pathway 1 – Introduction to Electronic Engineering (beginner/intermediate- Level 4) 

In this pathway, the project deliverables could be in the form of a physical artefact, together with a technical specification. 

 

Pathway 2 – Electromagnetics in Engineering (intermediate/advanced- Level 5) 

This project allows teachers the option to stop at multiple points for questions and/or activities as desired.  

 

Learners have the opportunity to: 

Teachers have the opportunity to: 

 

Learning and teaching resources: 

 

Overview:  

A local business premises near to a river has been suffering from severe flooding over the last 10 years. The business owner seeks to install a warning system that can provide adequate notice of a possible flood situation. 

 

Time frame & structure:
This project can be completed over 30 hours, either in a block covering 2-3 weeks (preferred) or 1 hour per week over the academic term. This project should be attempted in teams of 3-5 students. This would enable the group to develop a prototype, but the Specification (Pathway 1) and Technical Report (Pathway 2) could be individual submissions without collusion to enable individual assessment.

It is recommended that a genuine premises is found that has had the issues described above and a site visit could be made. This will not only give much needed context to the scenario but will also trigger emotional response and personal ownership to the problem. 

To prepare for activities related to sustainability, teachers may want to read, or assign students to pre-read the following article:
‘Mean or Green: Which values can promote stable pro-environmental behaviour?’ 

 

Context and Stakeholders: 

Flooding in the local town has become more prevalent over recent years, impacting homes and businesses. A local coffee shop priding itself on its ethical credentials is located adjacent to the river and is one of the businesses that has suffered from severe flooding over the last 10 years, causing thousands of pounds worth of spoilt stock and loss of revenue. The local council’s flood warning system is far from adequate to protect individuals on a site-by-site basis. So the shop is looking for an individual warning system, giving the manager and staff adequate notice of a possible flood situation. This will enable stock to be moved in good time to a safer drier location. The shop manager is very conscious of wanting to implement a sustainable design that uses sustainable materials and renewable energy, to promote the values of the shop. It is becoming clear that such a solution would also benefit other businesses that experience flooding and a wider solution should also be considered. 

 

Pathway 1 

This project requires assessment of the local area and ideally a visit to the retailer to understand their needs and consider options for water level monitoring. You are required to consider environmental and sustainable factors when presenting a solution.

After a visit to the premises:  

  1. Discussion: What is your initial reaction to the effects of the flooding​ and does ​it surprise you? What might your initial reaction reveal to you about your own perspectives and values?
  2. Discussion: What is your initial reaction to the causes of the flooding​ and​ does it surprise you? What might your initial reaction reveal to you about your own perspectives and values?​
  3. ​​Discussion and activity: List the potential issues and risks to installing a device in or near to the river bank. ​
  4. ​​Activity: Research water level monitoring. What are the main technical and logistical issues with this technology in this scenario?​
  5. Activity: Both cost-benefit and sustainable trade-off analyses are valuable approaches to consider in this case.  Determine the possible courses of action and undertake both types of analysis for each position by considering both short- and long-term consequences.​​     ​​
  6. Reflection: ​Obligations to future generations: Do we have a responsibility to provide a safe and healthy environment for humans that don’t yet exist, or for an ecosystem that will eventually change?​ 

 

​​Design Process​​​:

To satisfy the learning outcomes identified above the following activities are suggested.​ 

​ 

​​​Assessment activity 1 – Physical artefact​:​ 

Design, build and test a prototype flood warning device, monitoring various water levels and controlling an output or outputs in an alarm condition to meet the following as a minimum:
 

a) The device will require the use of an analogue sensor that will directly or indirectly output an electrical signal proportional to the water level. 

b) It will integrate to appropriate Operational Amplifier circuitry. 

c) The circuitry will control an output device or devices. 

d) The power consumption of the complete circuit will be assessed to allow an appropriate renewable energy supply to be specified (but not necessarily be part of the build). 

 

​​​Assessment activity 2 – ​Technical specification:​ 

The written specification and accompanying drawings shall enable a solution to be manufactured based on the study, evaluation and affirmation of the product requirements. 

The evaluation of the product requirements and consequent component selection will reference the use of design tools and problem-solving techniques. In compiling the specification the component selection and integration will highlight the underlying engineering principles that have been followed. The specification shall be no more than 1000 words (plus illustrations and references). 

 

Pathway 2

This project requires assessment of the local area and ideally a visit to the retailer to understand their needs and consider options for water level monitoring.

You are required to consider environmental and sustainable factors when presenting a solution. 

After a visit to the premises:  

  1. Discussion: What is your initial reaction to the effects of the flooding and does it surprise you? What might your initial reaction reveal to you about your own perspectives and values?
  2. ​​Discussion: What is your initial reaction to the causes of the flooding​ and​ does it surprise you? What might your initial reaction reveal to you about your own perspectives and values?​
  3. Discussion and activity: List the potential issues and risks to installing a device in or near to the river bank. ​
  4. Activity: Both cost-benefit and sustainable trade-off analyses are valuable approaches to consider in this case.  Determine the possible courses of action and undertake both types of analysis for each position by considering both short- and long-term consequences.​​     ​​ 

 

Wireless communication of information electronically is now commonplace. It’s important ​for the learners ​to understand the differences between the various types both technically and commercially to enable the most appropriate form of communication to be chosen.

Pathway 1 above explains the need for a flood warning device to monitor water levels of a river. In Pathway 2, this part of the challenge (which could be achieved in isolation) is to communicate this information from the river to an office location within the town. 

 

Design Process: 

Design a communications system that will transmit data, equivalent to the height of the river in metres. The maximum frequency and distance over which the data can be transmitted should be explored and defined, but as a minimum this data should be sent every 20 seconds over a distance of 500m. 

 

​Assessment activity – Technical report: ​​     ​ 

A set of user requirements and two possible technical solutions shall be presented in the form of a Technical Report: 

The report shall be no more than 3000 words (plus illustrations and references)  

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters. 
 
 
To view a plain text version of this resource, click here to download the PDF.

Authors: Dr Gilbert Tang; Dr Rebecca Raper (Cranfield University). 

Topic: Considering the SDGs at all stages of new robot creation. 

Tool type: Guidance. 

Relevant disciplines: Computing; Robotics; Electrical; Computer science; Information technology; Software engineering; Artificial Intelligence; Mechatronics; Manufacturing engineering; Materials engineering; Mechanical engineering; Data. 

Keywords: SDGs; AHEP; Sustainability; Design; Life cycle; Local community; Environment; Circular economy; Recycling or recycled materials; Student support; Higher education; Learning outcomes. 
 
Sustainability competency: Systems thinking; Anticipatory; Critical thinking.

AHEP mapping: This resource addresses two of the themes from the UK’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): The Engineer and Society (acknowledging that engineering activity can have a significant societal impact) and Engineering Practice (the practical application of engineering concepts, tools and professional skills). To map this resource to AHEP outcomes specific to a programme under these themes, access AHEP 4 here and navigate to pages 30-31 and 35-37.  

Related SDGs: SDG 9 (Industry, innovation, and infrastructure); SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production). 
 
Reimagined Degree Map Intervention: Adapt and repurpose learning outcomes; More real-world complexity.

Who is this article for? This article is for educators working at all levels of higher education who wish to integrate Sustainability into their robotics engineering and design curriculum or module design. It is also for students and professionals who want to seek practical guidance on how to integrate Sustainability considerations into their robotics engineering. 

 

Premise:  

There is an urgent global need to address the social and economic challenges relating to our world and the environment (Raper et al., 2022). The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework for individuals, policy-makers and industries to work to address some of these challenges (Gutierrez-Bucheli et al., 2022). These 17 goals encompass areas such as clean energy, responsible consumption, climate action, and social equity. Engineers play a pivotal role in achieving these goals by developing innovative solutions that promote sustainability and they can use these goals to work to address broader sustainability objectives. 

Part of the strategy to ensure that engineers incorporate sustainability into their solution development is to ensure that engineering students are educated on these topics and taught how to incorporate considerations at all stages in the engineering process (Eidenskog et al., 2022). For instance, students need not only to have a broad awareness of topics such as the SDGs, but they also need lessons on how to ensure their engineering incorporates sustainable practice. Despite the increased effort that has been demonstrated in engineering generally, there are some challenges when the sustainability paradigm needs to be integrated into robotics study programs or modules (Leifler and Dahlin, 2020). This article details one approach to incorporate considerations of the SDGs at all stages of new robot creation: including considerations prior to design, during creation and manufacturing and post-deployment. 

 

1. During research and problem definition:

Sustainability considerations should start from the beginning of the engineering cycle for robotic systems. During this phase it is important to consider what the problem statement is for the new system, and whether the proposed solution satisfies this in a sustainable way, using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) linked to the SDGs (United Nations, 2018), such as carbon emissions, energy efficiency and social equity (Hristov and Chirico, 2019). For instance, will the energy expended to create the robot solution be offset by the robot once it is in use? Are there long-term consequences of using a robot as a solution? It is important to begin engagement with stakeholders, such as end-users, local communities, and subject matter experts to gain insight into these types of questions and any initial concerns. Educators can provide students with opportunities to engage in the research and development of robotics technology that can solve locally relevant problems and benefit the local community. These types of research projects allow students to gain valuable research experience and explore robotics innovations through solving problems that are relatable to the students. There are some successful examples across the globe as discussed in Dias et al., 2005. 

 

2. At design and conceptualisation:

Once it is decided that a robot works as an appropriate solution, Sustainability should be integrated into the robot system’s concept and design. Considerations can include incorporating eco-design principles that prioritise resource efficiency, waste reduction, and using low-impact materials. The design should use materials with relatively low environmental footprints, assessing their complete life cycles, including extraction, production, transportation, and disposal. Powered systems should prioritise energy-efficient designs and technologies to reduce operational energy consumption, fostering sustainability from the outset. 

 

3. During creation and manufacturing:

The robotic system should be manufactured to prioritise methods that minimise, mitigate or offset waste, energy consumption, and emissions. Lean manufacturing practices can be used to optimise resource utilisation where possible. Engineers should be aware of the importance of considering sustainability in supply chain management to select suppliers with consideration of their sustainability practices, including ethical labour standards and environmentally responsible sourcing. Robotic systems should be designed in a way that is easy to assemble and disassemble, thus enabling robots to be easily recycled, or repurposed at the end of their life cycle, promoting circularity and resource conservation. 

 

4. Deployment:

Many robotic systems are designed to run constantly day and night in working environments such as manufacturing plants and warehouses. Thus energy-efficient operation is crucial to ensure users operate the product or system efficiently, utilising energy-saving features to reduce operational impacts. Guidance and resources should be provided to users to encourage sustainable practices during the operational phase. System designers should also implement systems for continuous monitoring of performance and data collection to identify opportunities for improvement throughout the operational life. 

 

5. Disposal:

Industrial robots have an average service life of 6-7 years. It is important to consider their end-of-life and plan for responsible disposal or recycling of product components. Designs should be prioritised that facilitate disassembly and recycling (Karastoyanov and Karastanev, 2018). Engineers should identify and safely manage hazardous materials to comply with regulations and prevent environmental harm. Designers can also explore options for product take-back and recycling as part of a circular economy strategy. There are various ways of achieving that. Designers can adopt modular design methodologies to enable upgrades and repairs, extending their useful life. Robot system manufacturers should be encouraged to develop strategies for refurbishing and reselling products, promoting reuse over disposal. 

 

Conclusion: 

Sustainability is not just an option but an imperative within the realm of engineering. Engineers must find solutions that not only meet technical and economic requirements but also align with environmental, social, and economic sustainability goals. As well as educating students on the broader topics and issues relating to Sustainability, there is a need for teaching considerations at different stages in the robot development lifecycle. Understanding the multifaceted connections between sustainability and engineering disciplines, as well as their impact across various stages of the engineering process, is essential for engineers to meet the challenges of the 21st century responsibly.  

 

References: 

Dias, M. B., Mills-Tettey, G. A., & Nanayakkara, T. (2005, April). Robotics, education, and sustainable development. In Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (pp. 4248-4253). IEEE. 

Eidenskog, M., Leifler, O., Sefyrin, J., Johnson, E., & Asplund, M. (2023). Changing the world one engineer at a time–unmaking the traditional engineering education when introducing sustainability subjects. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 24(9), 70-84.  

Gutierrez-Bucheli, L., Kidman, G., & Reid, A. (2022). Sustainability in engineering education: A review of learning outcomes. Journal of Cleaner Production, 330, 129734. 

Hristov, I., & Chirico, A. (2019). The role of sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) in implementing sustainable strategies. Sustainability, 11(20), 5742. 

Karastoyanov, D., & Karastanev, S. (2018). Reuse of Industrial Robots. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 51(30), 44-47. 

Leifler, O., & Dahlin, J. E. (2020). Curriculum integration of sustainability in engineering education–a national study of programme director perspectives. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(5), 877-894. 

Raper, R., Boeddinghaus, J., Coeckelbergh, M., Gross, W., Campigotto, P., & Lincoln, C. N. (2022). Sustainability budgets: A practical management and governance method for achieving goal 13 of the sustainable development goals for AI development. Sustainability, 14(7), 4019. 

SDG Indicators — SDG Indicators (2018) United Nations (Accessed: 19 February 2024) 

 

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Authors: Ahmet Omurtag (Nottingham Trent University); Andrei Dragomir (National University of Singapore / University of Houston).

Topic: Data security of smart technologies.

Engineering disciplines: Electronics; Data; Biomedical engineering.

Ethical issues: Autonomy; Dignity; Privacy; Confidentiality.

Professional situations: Communication; Honesty; Transparency; Informed consent; Misuse of data.

Educational level: Advanced.

Educational aim: Practising Ethical Analysis: engaging in a process by which ethical issues are defined, affected parties and consequences are identified, so that relevant moral principles can be applied to a situation in order to determine possible courses of action.

 

Learning and teaching notes:

This case involves Aziza, a biomedical engineer working for Neuraltrix, a hypothetical company that develops Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) for specialised applications. Aziza has always been curious about the brain and enthusiastic about using cutting-edge technologies to help people in their daily lives. Her team has designed a BCI that can measure brain activity non-invasively and, by applying machine learning algorithms, assess the job-related proficiency and expertise level of a person. She is leading the deployment of the new system in hospitals and medical schools, to be used in evaluating candidates being considered for consultant positions. In doing so, and to respond to requests to extend and use the BCI-based system in unforeseen ways, she finds herself compelled to weigh various ethical, legal and professional responsibilities.

This case study addresses two of AHEP 4’s themes: The Engineer and Society (acknowledging that engineering activity can have a significant societal impact) and Engineering Practice (the practical application of engineering concepts, tools and professional skills). To map this case study to AHEP outcomes specific to a programme under these themes, access AHEP 4 here and navigate to pages 30-31 and 35-37.

The dilemma in this case is presented in three parts. If desired, a teacher can use the Summary and Part one in isolation, but Parts two and three develop and complicate the concepts presented in the Summary and Part one to provide for additional learning. The case allows teachers the option to stop at multiple points for questions and/or activities as desired.

Learners have the opportunity to:

Teachers have the opportunity to:

 

Learning and teaching resources:

Legal regulations:

Professional organisations:

Philanthropic organisations:

Journal articles:

Educational institutions:

 

Summary:

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) detect brain activity and utilise advanced signal analysis to identify features in the data that may be relevant to specific applications. These features might provide information about people’s thoughts and intentions or about their psychological traits or potential disorders, and may be interpreted for various purposes such as for medical diagnosis, for providing real-time feedback, or for interacting with external devices such as a computer. Some current non-invasive BCIs employ unobtrusive electroencephalography headsets or even optical (near-infrared) sensors to detect brain function and can be safe and convenient to use.

Evidence shows that the brains of people with specialised expertise have identifiable functional characteristics. Biomedical technology may translate this knowledge soon into BCIs that can be used for objectively assessing professional skills. Researchers already know that neural signals support features linked to levels of expertise, which may enable the assessment of job applicants or candidates for promotion or certification.

BCI technology would potentially benefit people by improving the match between people and their jobs, and allowing better and more nuanced career support. However, the BCI has access to additional information that may be sensitive or even troubling. For example, it could reveal a person’s health status (such as epilepsy or stroke), or it may suggest psychological traits ranging from unconscious racial bias to psychopathy. Someone sensitive about their privacy may be reluctant to consent to wearing a BCI.

In everyday life, we show what is on our minds through language and behaviour, which are normally under our control, and provide a buffer of privacy. BCIs with direct access to the brain and increasing capability to decode its activity may breach this buffer. Information collected by BCIs could be of interest not only to employers who will decide whether to hire and invest in a new employee, but also to health insurers, advertising agencies, or governments.

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities:

1. Activity: Risks of brain activity decoding – Identify the physical, ethical, and social difficulties that could result from the use of devices that have the ability to directly access the brain and decipher some of its psychological content such as thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.

2. Activity: Regulatory oversight – Investigate which organisations and regulatory bodies currently monitor and are responsible for the safe and ethical use of BCIs.

3. Activity: Technical integration – Investigate how BCIs work to translate brain activity into interpretable data.

 

Dilemma – Part one:

After the company, Neuraltrix, deployed their BCI and it had been in use for a year in several hospitals, its lead developer Aziza became part of the customer support team. While remaining proud and supportive of the technology, she had misgivings about some of its unexpected ramifications. She received the following requests from people and institutions for system modifications or for data sharing:

1. A hospital asked Neuraltrix for a technical modification that would allow the HR department to send data to their clinical neurophysiologists for “further analysis,” claiming that this might benefit people by potentially revealing a medical abnormality that might otherwise be missed.

2. An Artificial Intelligence research group partnering with Neuraltrix requested access to the data to improve their signal analysis algorithms.

3. A private health insurance company requested Neuraltrix provide access to the scan of someone who had applied for insurance coverage; they stated that they have a right to examine the scan just as life insurance agencies are allowed to perform health checks on potential customers.

4. An advertising agency asked Neuraltrix for access to their data to use them to fine-tune their customer behavioural prediction algorithms.

5. A government agency demanded access to the data to investigate a suspected case of “radicalisation”.

6. A prosecutor asked for access to the scan of a specific person because she had recently been the defendant in an assault case, where the prosecutor is gathering evidence of potential aggressive tendencies.

7. A defence attorney requested data because they were gathering potentially exonerating evidence, to prove that the defendant’s autonomy had been compromised by their brain states, following a line of argument known as “My brain made me do it.”

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities: 

1. Activity: Identify legal issues – Students could research what laws or regulations apply to each case and consider various ways in which Neuraltrix could lawfully meet some of the above requests while rejecting others, and how their responses should be communicated within the company and to the requestor.

2. Activity: Identify ethical issues – Students could reflect on what might be the immediate ethical concerns related to sharing the data as requested.

3. Activity: Discussion or Reflection – Possible prompts:

 

Dilemma – Part two:

The Neuraltrix BCI has an interface which allows users to provide informed consent before being scanned. The biomedical engineer developing the system was informed about a customer complaint which stated that the user had felt pressured to provide consent as the scan was part of a job interview. The complaint also stated that the user had not been aware of the extent of information gleaned from their brains, and that they would not have provided consent had been made aware of it.

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities: 

1. Activity: Technical analysis – Students might try to determine if it is possible to design the BCI consent system and/or consent process to eliminate the difficulties cited in the complaint. Could the device be designed to automatically detect sensitive psychological content or allow the subject to stop the scan or retroactively erase the recording?

2. Activity: Determine the broader societal impact and the wider ethical context – Students should consider what issues are raised by the widespread availability of brain scans. This could be done in small groups or a larger classroom discussion.

Possible prompts:

 

Dilemma – Part three:

Neuraltrix BCI is about to launch its updated version, which features all data processing and storage moved to the cloud to facilitate interactive and mobile applications. This upgrade attracted investors and a major deal is about to be signed. The board is requesting a fast deployment from the management team and Aziza faces pressure from her managers to run final security checks and go live with the cloud version. During these checks, Aziza discovers a critical security issue which can be exploited once the BCI runs in the cloud, risking breaches in the database and algorithm. Managers believe this can be fixed after launch and request the engineer to start deployment and identify subsequent solutions to fix the security issue.

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities: 

1. Activity: Students should consider if it is advisable for Aziza to follow requests from managers and the Neuraltrix BCI board and discuss possible consequences, or halt the new version deployment which may put at risk the new investment deal and possibly the future of the company.

2. Activity: Apply an analysis based on “Duty-Ethics” and “Rights Ethics.” This could be done in small groups (who would argue for management position and engineer position, respectively) or a larger classroom discussion. A tabulation approach with detailed pros and cons is recommended.

3. Activity: Apply a similar analysis as above based on the principles of “Act-Utilitarianism” and “Rule-Utilitarianism.”

Possible prompts:

 

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Author: Onyekachi Nwafor (KatexPower).

Topic: A country-wide energy transition plan.

Engineering disciplines: Energy; Electrical.

Ethical issues:  Sustainability; Social responsibility; Risk.

Professional situations: Public health and safety,

Educational level: Beginner.

Educational aim: Engaging in Ethical Judgement: reaching moral decisions and providing the rationale for those decisions.

 

Learning and teaching notes:

At COP26, H.E. President Muhammadu Buhari announced Nigeria’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050. This case involves an engineer who is one of the stakeholders invited by the president of Nigeria to implement an Energy Transition Plan (ETP). It requires the engineer, who is a professional and well experienced in renewable energy and energy transition, to deliver a comprehensive decarbonisation roadmap that will ensure net zero emissions.

This case study addresses two of AHEP 4’s themes: The Engineer and Society (acknowledging that engineering activity can have a significant societal impact) and Engineering Practice (the practical application of engineering concepts, tools and professional skills). To map this case study to AHEP outcomes specific to a programme under these themes, access AHEP 4 here and navigate to pages 30-31 and 35-37.

The dilemma in this case is presented in two parts. If desired, a teacher can use Part one in isolation, but Part two develops and complicates the concepts presented in Part one to provide for additional learning. The case allows teachers the option to stop at multiple points for questions and / or activities, as desired.

Learners have the opportunity to:

Teachers have the opportunity to:

 

Learning and teaching resources:

UK website:

Think tank:

Nigeria government site:

Industry publication:

Business:

 

Dilemma – Part one:

You are an electrical engineer working as a technical consultant in an international organisation aiming to  transform the global energy system to secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. The organisation is one of the stakeholders invited by the federal government of Nigeria to implement the country’s new Energy Transition Plan (ETP) and you are given the task of creating a comprehensive decarbonisation roadmap and presenting it at the stakeholder meeting.

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities:

1. Discussion: In what ways could an electrical engineer bring needed expertise to the ETP? Why are engineers essential to ensuring a zero-carbon future? Should engineers be involved in policy planning? Why or why not?

2. Activity: Wider context research: Nigeria is currently an oil-producing country. What might policy makers need to consider about this reality when implementing an ETP? How strongly should you advocate for a reduction of the use of fossil fuels in the energy mix?

3. Discussion and activity: List the potential benefits and risks to implementing the ETP. Are these benefits and risks the same no matter which country they are implemented in?

4. Activity: Research and outline countries that have attained a zero emission target. What are their energy distribution mixes? Based on this information, what approach should Nigeria take and why?

5. Activity: What will be your presentation strategy at the stakeholder meeting? What will you advocate for and why? What ethical justifications can you make for the plan you propose?

 

Dilemma – Part two:

At the stakeholder meeting, you were given the opportunity to present your decarbonisation roadmap and afterwards faced serious opposition by the chief lobbyist of the Fossil Fuel and Mining Association, Mr. Abiola. Mr. Abiola is of the opinion that because Nigeria contributes less than 1% to the global emissions, it should not be held accountable for climate change, and therefore no country-wide climate policy is necessary. Furthermore, he fears the domestic market for coal that is used to produce electricity as well as the global market for fossil fuels will shrink because of the new policy. He also argues that a shift away from coal and fossil fuels could result in challenges to the security of supply, since renewables are by definition unreliable and volatile. Other stakeholders, such as activists and environmental experts, also voiced different concerns and opinions. They argue that time has already run out, and no country can delay decarbonisation plans no matter how small their impact on the global total. This conflict has resulted in disagreements in the negotiation.

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities:

1. Debate: Do different countries have different ethical responsibilities when it comes to decarbonisation? Why or why not? If so, for what reasons?

2. Discussion: How should countries weigh the short-term versus long-term benefits and burdens of the energy transition? What role do governments and corporations play in managing those? What role should citizens play?

3. Discussion: How will you prepare for and handle opposing questions to your roadmap plan? 

4. Activity: Create a participatory stakeholder engagement plan embedded in the overall decarbonisation strategy.

5. Activity: How will you utilise the different renewable energy mix to provide 100% access to electricity and ensure security of supply as an electrical engineer?

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

Authors: Mr Neil Rogers (Independent Scholar); Sarah Jayne Hitt, Ph.D. SFHEA (NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University).

Topic: Suitable technology for developing countries. 

Engineering disciplines: Mechanical engineering; Electrical engineering; Energy. 

Ethical issues: Sustainability; Honesty; Integrity; Public good. 

Professional situations: Communication; Bribery; Working cultures; Honesty; Transparency. 

Educational level: Advanced. 

Educational aim: Practicing Ethical Reasoning: the application of critical analysis to specific events in order to evaluate and respond to problems in a fair and responsible way. 

 

Learning and teaching notes: 

This case study requires a newly appointed engineer to make a decision about whether or not to sell unsuitable equipment to a developing country. Situated in Ghana, the engineer must weigh perspectives on environmental ethics that may differ from those informed by a different cultural background, as well as navigate unfamiliar workplace expectations. 

The engineer’s own job security is also at stake, which may complicate decision-making. As a result, this case has several layers of relations and potential value-conflicts. These include values that underlie assumptions held about honesty, integrity, the environment and its connection to human life and services. 

This case study addresses two of the themes from the Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes fourth edition (AHEP4): The Engineer and Society (acknowledging that engineering activity can have a significant societal impact) and Engineering Practice (the practical application of engineering concepts, tools and professional skills). To map this case study to AHEP outcomes specific to a programme under these themes, access AHEP 4 here and navigate to pages 30-31 and 35-37. 

This case study is presented in two parts. If desired, a teacher can use Part one in isolation, but Part two develops and complicates the concepts presented in Part one to provide for additional learning. The case study allows teachers the option to stop at multiple points for questions and/or activities as desired.  

Learners have the opportunity to: 

Teachers have the opportunity to: 

 

Learning and teaching resources: 

Educational institutions: 

Journal articles: 

Professional organisations: 

News articles: 

NGOs: 

 

Pre-reading: 

To prepare for activities related to environmental ethics, teachers may want to read, or assign students to pre-read, the academic articles found in the resource list: ‘Environmental ethics: An overview’ or ‘Mean or Green: Which values can promote stable pro-environmental behaviour?’ 

 

Dilemma – Part one: 

You have just graduated from university as a mechanical engineer and you are starting your first job as a sales engineer for JCD Engineering, a company that designs and manufactures pumping equipment. JCD has recently expanded operations in sub-Saharan Africa and you took the job because you were excited for the opportunity to travel and work in a country and culture different from your own.  

For your first project, you have been asked to put together quite a large bid for a water pumping aid project for some farms in northern Ghana. It just so happens that there is a trade show being held in Accra, so your manager has suggested you attend the show with a colleague to help on the company stand and combine this with a site visit to where the pumping equipment is to be installed. A representative from the aid organisation agrees to drive you to where the project will be sited before the trade show takes place. 

On arrival in Ghana, you are met by the rep to take you on your journey up country. This is your first visit to a developing country; you are excited, a little apprehensive and quite surprised by disorganisation at the airport, poor infrastructure, and obvious poverty in the villages up country. Still, you immediately see the difference that water pump installation could make to improve quality of life in villages. After two days of travelling, you eventually arrive at the village where the project JCD is bidding on will be situated. You are surprised to hear that the aid rep is quite cynical about engineering aid projects from the UK; this is because many have failed and she hopes that this won’t be another one. She is very busy and leaves you with local school teacher Amadou, who will host you during your stay and act as your interpreter. 

The local chief, farmers, and their families are very excited to see you and you are taken aback by the lavish food, dancing, and reception that they have laid on especially for you. You exchange social media contacts with Amadou, who you understand has been instrumental in winning this contract. You get excited about working with Amadou on this project and the prospect of improving the livelihoods of the locals with better access to clean water. 

After some hours you get shown some of the existing pumping equipment, but you don’t recognise it and it has obviously been left idle for some time and looks to be in a poor state. The farmers appear confused and are surprised that you aren’t familiar with the pumps. They explain that the equipment is from China and was working well for many years. They understand how it operates and have even managed to repair some of the fittings in local workshops, but there are now key parts they have been waiting many months for and they assume that you have brought them with you. 

You try to explain through Amadou that there has been some misunderstanding and that you don’t have the spares but will be quoting for replacement equipment from your company in the UK. This is not what the farmers want to hear and the mood changes. They have spent many years getting to know this kit and now they can even locally fabricate some of the parts. Why would you change it all now? The farmers start shouting and Amadou takes you to one side and suggests you should respond by offering them something in return. 

What should you offer them? 

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities: 

1. Discussion: What is your initial reaction to the miscommunication? Does it surprise you? What might your initial reaction reveal to you about your own perspectives and values? 

2. Discussion: What is your initial reaction to the reception given to you? Does it surprise you? What might your initial reaction reveal to you about your own perspectives and values? 

3. Activity: Technical integration – undertake an electrical engineering technical activity related to water pumps and their power consumption against flow rates and heads. 

4. Discussion and activity: List the potential benefits and risks to implementing water pump technology compared to traditional methods of water collection. Are these benefits and risks the same no matter which country they are implemented in? 

5. Activity: Research water pumping in developing countries. What are the main technical and logistical issues with this technology? Are there any cultural issues to consider?  

6. Activity: This activity is related to optional pre-readings on environmental ethics. Consider how your perspective is related to the following environmental values, and pair/share or debate with a peer. 

 

Dilemma – Part two: 

You reluctantly backtrack a little on what you said earlier and convince Amadou and the farmers that you will be able to sort something out. Back in Accra at the local trade show, you manage to source only a few spares as a quick fix since you had to pay for them yourself without your colleague noticing. The aid representative agrees to take them up country next time she travels. 

You arrive back in the UK and begin to prepare the JCD bid. You are aware that the equipment from your company is very different to the Chinese kit that the farmers already have. It is designed to run on a different voltage and uses different pipe gauges throughout for the actual water pumping. The locally fabricated spares will definitely not connect to the JCD components you will be specifying. 

You voice your concerns to your manager about the local situation but your manager insists that it is not your problem and the bid will not win if it is not competitive. Sales in your department are not good at the moment, and after all you are a new employee on probation and you want to make a good first impression. 

Having further investigated some comments Amadou made on the trip, you discover that the water table has dropped by several metres in this part of Ghana over the last five years and you realise that the equipment originally quoted for might not even be up to the job! 

 

Optional STOP for questions and activities: 

1. Discussion: Should you disclose these newly discovered concerns about the water table height or keep quiet? 

2. Discussion: Do you continue to submit the bid for equipment that you know may be totally inappropriate? Why, or why not? 

3. Activity: Role-play a conversation between the engineer and the JCD manager about the issues that have been discovered. 

4. Discussion and activity: Research levels of the water table in West Africa and how they have changed over the last 50 years. Is there a link here to climate change? What other factors may be involved? 

5. Discussion: Environmental ethics deals with assumptions that are often unstated, such as the obligation to future generations. Some people find that our obligation is greater to people who exist at this moment than to those that don’t yet exist. Do you agree or disagree with this position? Why? Can we maintain an obligation to future generations while simultaneously saying that this must be weighed against the obligations in the here and now? 

6. Activity: Both cost-benefit and value trade-off analyses are valuable approaches to consider in this case. Determine the possible courses of action and undertake both types of analysis for each position by considering both short- and long-term consequences. (Use the Mapping actors and processes article to help with this activity.) 

7. Activity: Using reasoning and evidence, create arguments for choosing one of the possible courses of action. 

8. Activity: Use heuristics to analyse possible courses of action. One heuristic is the Environmental ethics decision making guide. Another is the 7-step guide to ethical decision-making. 

  

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Case enhancement: Developing an internet constellation

Activity: Anatomy of an internet satellite.

Author: Sarah Jayne Hitt, Ph.D. SFHEA (NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University).

 

Overview:

This enhancement is for an activity found in the Dilemma Part two section. It is based on the work done by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler and published by the SHARE Lab of the SHARE Foundation and the AI Now Institute of New York University, which investigates the “anatomy” of an Amazon Echo device in order to “understand and govern the technical infrastructures” of complex devices. Educators should review the Anatomy of an AI website to see the map and the complementary discussion in order to prepare and to get further ideas. This activity is fundamentally focused on developing systems thinking, a competency viewed as essential in sustainability that also has many ethical implications. Systems thinking is also an AHEP outcome (area 6). The activity could also be given a supply chain emphasis.

This could work as either an in-class activity that would likely take an entire hour or more, or it could be a homework assignment or a combination of the two. It could easily be integrated with technical learning. The activity is presented in parts; educators can choose which parts to use or focus on.

 

1. What are the components needed to make an internet satellite functional?:

First, students can be asked to brainstorm what they think the various components of an internet satellite are without using the internet to help them. This can include electrical, mechanical, and computing parts.

Next, students can be asked to brainstorm what resources are needed for a satellite to be launched into orbit. This could include everything from human resources to rocket fuel to the concrete that paves the launch pad. Each of those resources also has inputs, from chemical processing facilities to electricity generation and so forth.

Next, students can be asked to brainstorm what systems are required to keep the internet satellite operational throughout its time in orbit. This can include systems related to the internet itself, but also things like power and maintenance.

Finally, students can be asked to brainstorm what resources will be needed to manage the satellite’s end of life.

Small groups of students could each be given a whiteboard to make a tether diagram showing how all these components connect, and to try to determine the path dependencies between all of them.

To emphasise ethics explicitly, educators could ask students to imagine where within the tether diagram there could be ethical conflicts or dilemmas and why. Additionally, students could reflect on how changing one part of the system in the satellite would affect other parts of the system.

 

2. How and where are those components made?:

In this portion of the activity, students can research where all the parts of those components and systems come from – including metals, plastics, glass, etc. They should also research how and where the elements making up those parts are made – mines, factories, chemical plants, etc. – and how they are then shipped to where they are assembled and the corresponding inputs/outputs of that process.

Students could make a physical map of the globe to show where the raw materials come from and where they “travel” on their path to becoming a part of the internet satellite system.

To emphasise ethics explicitly, educators could ask students to imagine where within the resources map there could be ethical conflicts or dilemmas and why, and what the sustainability implications are of materials sourcing.

 

3. The anatomy of data:

In this portion of the activity, students can research how the internet provides access to and stores data, and the physical infrastructures required to do so. This includes data centres, fibre optic cables, energy, and human labour. Whereas internet service is often quite localised (for instance, students may be able to see 5G masts or the service vans of their internet service provider), in the case of internet satellites it is very distant and therefore often “invisible”.

To emphasise ethics explicitly, educators could ask students to debate the equity and fairness of spreading the supply and delivery of these systems beyond the area in which they are used. In the case of internet satellites specifically, this includes space and the notion of space as a common resource for all. This relates to other questions and activities presented in the case study.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

Case enhancement: Water wars: managing competing water rights

Activity: Role-play the council meeting, with students playing different characters representing different perspectives.

Author: Cortney Holles (Colorado School of Mines, USA).

 

Overview:

This enhancement is for an activity found in the Dilemma Part two, Point 6 section: “Role-play the council meeting, with students playing different characters representing different perspectives.” Below are several prompts for discussion questions and activities that can be used. Each prompt could take up as little or as much time as the educator wishes, depending on where they want the focus of the discussion to be.

 

Prompts for questions:

After discussing the case in class, and completing the stakeholder mapping activity (Dilemma Part one, Point 4 – repeated below) from the Water Wars case study, this lesson guides teachers through conducting a role-play of the council meeting scenario.

1. Discuss the stakeholder mapping activity: Who are all the characters in the scenario? What are their positions and perspectives? How can you use these perspectives to understand the complexities of the situation more fully?

2. To prepare for the council meeting role-play activity, assign students in advance to take on different stakeholder roles (randomly or purposefully), or let them self-assign based on their interests.  Roles can include any of the following:

Suggestions from Stakeholder mapping activity:

Additional stakeholders to consider:

3. Before the class session in which the role-play will occur, students should research their stakeholder to get a sense of their values and motivations in regard to the case. Where no information is available, students can imagine the experiences and perspectives of the stakeholder with the goal of articulating what the stakeholder values and what motivates them to come to the council meeting to be heard on this issue. Students should prepare some statements about the stakeholder position on the water use by DSS, what the stakeholder values, and what the stakeholder proposes the solution should be. Students assigned to be council members will prepare for the role-play by learning about the conflict and writing potential questions they would want to ask of the stakeholders representing different views on the conflict.

4. In class, students prepare to role-play the council meeting by first connecting with others in the same stakeholder role (if applicable – you may have few enough students to have only one student assigned to a stakeholder) and deciding who can speak (you may want to require each student to speak or ask that one person be nominated to speak on behalf of the stakeholder group).

5. As the session begins, remind students to jot down notes from the various perspectives’ positions so there can be a debrief conversation at the end.  Challenge students to consider their personal biases and position at the outset and reflect on those positions and biases at the end of the council meeting. If they were a lead member of the council, what solution would they propose or vote for?

6. As the Council Meeting begins, the teacher should act as a moderator to guide students through the session. First the teacher will briefly highlight the issue up for discussion, then pass it to the students representing the Council members.  Council members will open the meeting with their description of the matter at hand between DSS and other local parties. They set the tone for the meeting with a call for feedback from the community members. The teacher can help the Council members call up the stakeholders in turn. Each stakeholder group will have a chance to state their argument, values, and reasons for or against DSS’ water use.  Each stakeholder will have an opportunity to suggest a proposed solution and Council members can engage in discussion with each stakeholder to clarify anything about their position that was unclear.

7. At the end of the meeting, the council members privately confer and then publicly vote on a resolution for the community.  All students, no matter their role, end the class by reflecting on the outcome and their original position on the case. Has anything shifted in their position or rationale after the council meeting? Why or why not?

8. The whole class could then engage in a discussion about the outcome of the council meeting. Teachers could focus on an analysis of how the process went, a discussion about the persuasiveness of different values and positions, and/or an exploration of the internal thinking students went through to arrive at their positions.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

Case enhancement: Facial recognition for access and monitoring

Activity: Prompts to facilitate discussion activities. 

Author: Sarah Jayne Hitt, Ph.D. SFHEA (NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University).

 

Overview:

There are several points in this case during which an educator can facilitate a class discussion about relevant issues. Below are prompts for discussion questions and activities that can be used. These correspond with the stopping points outlined in the case. Each prompt could take up as little or as much time as the educator wishes, depending on where they want the focus of the discussion to be. The discussion prompts for Dilemma Part three are already well developed in the case study, so this enhancement focuses on expanding the prompts in Parts one and two.

 

Dilemma Part one – Discussion prompts:

1. Legal Issues. Give students ten minutes to individually or in groups do some online research on GDPR and the Data Protection Act (2018). In either small groups or as a large class, discuss the following prompts. You can explain that even if a person is not an expert in the law, it is important to try to understand the legal context. Indeed, an engineer is likely to have to interpret law and policy in their work. These questions invite critical thinking and informed consideration, but they do not necessarily have “right” answers and are suggestions that can help get a conversation started.

a. Are legal policies clear about how images of living persons should be managed when they are collected by technology of this kind?

b. What aspects of these laws might an engineer designing or deploying this system need to be aware of?

c. Do you think these laws are relevant when almost everyone walking around has a digital camera connected to the internet?

d. How could engineers help address legal or policy gaps through design choices?

2. Sharing Data. Before entering into a verbal discussion, either pass out the suggested questions listed in the case study on a worksheet or project on a screen. Have students spend five or ten minutes jotting down their personal responses. To understand the complexity of the issue, students could even create a quick mind map to show how different entities (police, security company, university, research group, etc.) interact on this issue. After the students spend some time in this personal reflection, educators could ask them to pair/share—turn to the person next to them and share what they wrote down. After about five minutes of this, each pair could amalgamate with another pair, with the educator giving them the prompt to report back to the full class on where they agree or disagree about the issues and why.

3. GDPR Consent. Before discussing this case particularly, ask students to describe a situation in which they had to give GDPR consent. Did they understand what they were doing, what the implications of consent are, and why? How did they feel about the process? Do they think it’s an appropriate system? This could be done as a large group, small group, or through individual reflection. Then turn the attention to this case and describe the change of perspective required here. Now instead of being the person who is asked for consent, you are the person requiring consent. Engineers are not lawyers, but engineers often are responsible for delivering legally compliant systems. If you were the engineer in charge in this case, what steps might you take to ensure consent is handled appropriately? This question could be answered in small groups, and then each group could report back to the larger class and a discussion could follow the report-backs.

4. Institutional Complexity. The questions listed in the case study relate to the fact that the building in which the facial recognition system will be used accommodates many different stakeholders. To help students with these questions, educators could divide the class into small groups, with each group representing one of the institutions or stakeholder groups (college, hospital, MTU, students, patients, public, etc.). Have each group investigate whether regulations related to captured images are different for their stakeholders, and debate if they should be different. What considerations will the engineer in the case have to account for related to that group? The findings can then be discussed as a large class.

 

Dilemma Part two – Discussion prompts:

The following questions relate to macroethical concerns, which means that the focus is on wider ethical contexts such as fairness, equality, responsibility, and implications.

1. Benefits and Burdens. To prepare to discuss the questions listed in the case study, students could make a chart of potential harms and potential benefits of the facial recognition system. They could do this individually, in pairs or small groups, or as a large class. Educators should encourage them to think deeply and broadly on this topic, and not just focus on the immediate, short-term implications. Once this chart is made, the questions listed in the case study could be discussed as a group, and students asked to weigh up these burdens and benefits. How did they make the choices as to when a burden should outweigh a benefit or vice versa?

2. Equality and Utility. To address the questions listed in the case study, students could do some preliminary individual or small group research on the accuracy of facial recognition systems for various population groups. The questions could then be discussed in pairs, small groups, or as a large class.

3. Engineer Responsibility. Engineers are experts that have much more specific technical knowledge and understanding than the general public. Indeed, the vast majority of people have no idea how a facial recognition system works and what the legal requirements are related to it, even if they are asked to give their consent. Does an engineer therefore have more of a responsibility to make people aware and reassure them? Or is an engineer just fulfilling their duty by doing what their boss says and making the system work? What could be problematic about taking either of those approaches?

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

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