Sustainability Education for First Year Engineering Students using Cooperative Problem Based Learning

The issue of sustainable development has become one of the main priorities all over the world. There is a need to instil sustainability awareness among the younger generation to ensure sustainable production can be achieved in the near future. This paper describes teaching and learning strategies to instil sustainability awareness in first year engineering students at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) using cooperative problem based learning. A nine-week project with the theme of water conservation was introduced. The students were given a role to assist consultants to solve a “water sustainability” problem in their residential college. The cooperative problem based learning method acts as a scaffolding to train the students to identify the learning issues for themselves and to go through learning, solving and implementing various engineering components together with their team mates. This project also enhances students engineering solving capabilities, communication skills and interpersonal skills.