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Inclusion of the Sustainable Development Goals in an Engineering – Biomimetics and Sustainability – Course Curricula

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Towards a Hybrid, Flexible and Socially Engaged Higher Education (ICL 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 901))

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Abstract

This paper presents the experience of including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the Biomimetics and Sustainability course at Tecnologico de Monterrey, a general engineering education subject of the TEC 21 Model. The work was conducted in six groups during the Spring and Fall terms of 2022, accounting for 194 students. In this assignment, students had to prepare a proposal for using wind or solar resources to generate electricity in a region of their choice, making all the necessary research, suppositions, and calculations to ensure the proposed alternative was enough to provide the required energy. In addition, they had to select three or more SDGs (with their respective goals) that were most in line with their proposal and justify the reason for their choice. Students’ reports were assessed with rubrics and checklists, considering the accomplishment of the report components and the completeness of their argumentation. Most students selected SDGs #7, “Affordable and clean energy”, #11, “Sustainable cities and communities”, and #13, “Climate action”. In an anonymous survey, students agreed that learning becomes more significant by including the SDGs in the class assignment. We hope this work motivates more teachers to incorporate the SDGs in the different projects or proposals their students carry out in any subject, whether their institution has a sustainability plan.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in producing this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, NL, 64849, México

    Elsy G. Molina-Solís, Patricia Vázquez-Villegas, Luis Alberto Mejía-Manzano, Javier Romo-Molina, Mariajulia Martínez-Acosta & Jorge Membrillo-Hernández

Authors
  1. Elsy G. Molina-Solís
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  2. Patricia Vázquez-Villegas
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  3. Luis Alberto Mejía-Manzano
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  4. Javier Romo-Molina
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  5. Mariajulia Martínez-Acosta
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  6. Jorge Membrillo-Hernández
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jorge Membrillo-Hernández .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CTI Global, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    Michael E. Auer

  2. UTN – FRBA, Mozart, Argentina

    Uriel R. Cukierman

  3. DISA, Technical University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Eduardo Vendrell Vidal

  4. UPM, ETSII, Madrid, Spain

    Edmundo Tovar Caro

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Molina-Solís, E.G., Vázquez-Villegas, P., Mejía-Manzano, L.A., Romo-Molina, J., Martínez-Acosta, M., Membrillo-Hernández, J. (2024). Inclusion of the Sustainable Development Goals in an Engineering – Biomimetics and Sustainability – Course Curricula. In: Auer, M.E., Cukierman, U.R., Vendrell Vidal, E., Tovar Caro, E. (eds) Towards a Hybrid, Flexible and Socially Engaged Higher Education. ICL 2023. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 901. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53022-7_8

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