Incorporating Systems Thinking in the Engineering Design Curriculum: Path Forward for Sustainability Education

Systems thinking is the engineering technique that disaggregates complex technical, social, economic, and environmental problems into basic elements, studies their interrelations, evaluates these interactions through the aid of mathematics, and synthesizes the various elements into a complete and integrated system. Systems science and engineering has typically dealt with establishing common sets of features and functions that describe the system and its behavior, analyze them, and provide solutions for efficient operation of these systems. The specific nature of sustainable systems is very complex. The definition of sustainability encompasses economic, environmental, and societal aspects, which are deemed to work in a way such that the present and future generations are able to meet their needs. This article explores the need to introduce sustainability into the engineering curriculum and explains one method for doing so with an example.

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