Academy plays a key role as spreader and foster of sustainable development in future managers, workers, entrepreneurs, politicians and researchers. In addition, academy, but specially engineering faculties, has a role in the... [ view full abstract ]
Academy plays a key role as spreader and foster of sustainable development in future managers, workers, entrepreneurs, politicians and researchers. In addition, academy, but specially engineering faculties, has a role in the industrial and environmental setting, through the development of projects related with topics such as sustainable business models, natural resource management and social engagement (Espinosa & Walker, 2011), among others. These approaches to sustainable development must allow theory application and favor students´ opportunities to face real environments during their training. Accordingly, this abstract presents an initiative which foster partnership for sustainable development for engineering education, Ingenieros Sin Fronteras Colombia (Engineers without Borders Colombia). This organization is the result of an alliance between Universidad de los Andes and Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios, whose purpose is to improve the quality of life of marginalized communities in the country through engineering projects that are sustainable, economically and culturally viable. Furthermore, this initiative aims to develop social and environmental awareness in students, teacher, researchers and industry. To achieve that purpose, this group designed an interaction model based on partnership, teaching strategies and learning communities related with sustainable development issues. This model, that is being used by Ingenieros sin Fronteras since 2009, take social approaches, such as participatory action research (Ramirez et al., 2011), to engage communities to participate actively and teaching approaches, such as active learning (Lucke, Dunn & Cristie, 2016), to unleash students’ potential. Accordingly, this group promotes the development of sustainable partnership models between and from direct participation of small and big industries, students of colleges and schools, teachers and community in general. Finally, the application of this model into engineering students have several results. In terms of impact on sustainable development applications, students participate actively into the creation of green business associations, the implementation of green processes and foster water saving on rural areas, among others, meanwhile changes on learning approaches to real problems are implemented each semester. In brief, this abstract summarizes a model to integrate sustainable development teaching with engineering education through hands-on experience and the results of the implementation of this model to several contexts.
1c Role of academia (advocacy and education in sustainable development science)
