Sustainability and circular economy through PBL: Engineering students' perceptions

The learning on sustainability and circular economy, within an interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning methodology, on the first year of the Masters' degree program in Industrial Engineering and Management is investigated. By the end of semester, the perceptions about the project were collected and an analysis of the deliverables of each team was performed. The responses to the questionnaire unveils that the students recognize that the project is a stimulating challenge, while enabling to reflect and learn on sustainability issues. Meanwhile, it also shows that the articulation between the courses of the semester still holds some space for improvement. The analysis of the teams' deliverables revealed a variety of solutions that were based on sustainability concepts, namely on the choice of raw materials, digital and physical project deliverables, such as the ones detailing the products, representing the shop floor or making proof-of-concepts, and the production systems design and product prototypes.