Embedding climate change goals in engineering curricula

The paper describes the design and evaluation of group project-based approaches for embedding climate change and sustainability in final year undergraduate and postgraduate engineering taught classes at the University of Strathclyde, enrolling students with diverse backgrounds. The methodology will be illustrated via two case studies: a two-semester long image and video processing group project exploring algorithms that mitigate the effects of climate change, and a half semester long cooperative learning-based project where students reflect on how digital communications standards enable engineering solutions to tackle the United Nations sustainable development goals. Besides developing a deep appreciation of how theory links to practice in the fundamental building blocks of engineering design and implementation, the group projects develop collaborative working, creative thinking, cooperative learning, good engineering practice through reproducibility of approaches and how they can contribute to the sustainability agenda. Qualitative and quantitative feedback was collected from the students and analysed, indicating a predominantly positive learning experienc