Engineers need to understand their work’s human impact

Preparing students to tackle problems like climate change

"...I believe that engineers need to move away from a technocentric approach and adopt a sociotechnical mindset, as I explain in my book “Drones for Good: How to Bring Sociotechnical Thinking into the Classroom.” By this I mean we need to start thinking about the ways in which the social and technical are always connected...In order to validate this approach to education, my colleagues and I have extensively studied the impact of sociotechnical thinking on student performance in a wide range of classes and contexts, including courses in energy, drones and design. Most recently, with funding from the National Science Foundation, we developed a new course, Integrated Approach to Energy, that integrated sociotechnical thinking from the first day..We begin the semester not with the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, but instead with a practical conversation about how people actually use energy. As the semester progresses, we examine not only the technical intricacies of solar and wind, but also the ways in which fossil fuels have profoundly damaged our world." (Gordon D. Hoople, The Conversation, January 2022)

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posted	January 15, 2022
sponsor	Interdisciplinary Paths to Social Responsibility Education
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