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- A multicultural approach to teach sustainabilityPublication . Caetano, Nídia Sá; Rocha, João; Quadrado, José Carlos; Cardoso, José Marílio; Felgueiras, CarlosGlobalization is a trend that covers all society perspectives in general, and higher education in particular. The main traditional objective of higher education institutions has been to prepare domestic students with a given set of skills. Research competition and University’s rankings, as well as the need to reach other publics, pushed them towards internationalization. The exchange of students across the EU is a well-known reality which success is largely due to cultural similarities. However, a set of issues raises in importance when students from different cultures are involved. ISEP proposed a Summer Course aiming both to increase its level of internationalization and to verify how the institution is able to host foreign students. Therefore was organized, in July 2014, ISEP’s first Engineering for Sustainable Development Summer Course, with a layout specifically designed to address those questions. In our study, and in order to gain from an intensive and multicultural experience, the class included equal number of Korean and Portuguese students to develop work under the framework of sustainability, a theme chosen in order to foster consensus. This work reports some results from this experience, which included a Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach, and points out new directions: PBL revealed to be a promoting integration way; the inclusion of multiple cultures allowed the analysis of different perspectives which otherwise would not have been succeed; institutional academic/social services need to be adapted in order to receive non-Portuguese speaking students; there is a need for further adequate accommodation able to receive a larger number of international students.
- Sustainability in buildings – a teaching approachPublication . Felgueiras, Carlos; Martins, Florinda; Caetano, NídiaEnergy consumption in buildings is responsible for an important share of global consumed energy. The current electric energy paradigm carries important consequences both at economic and environmental levels. The so called Zero Energy Buildings’ strategy provides some guidelines in order to achieve better results in buildings energy demand. This scenario is a highly multidisciplinary engineering issue, and poses several challenges at the higher education level, that is taught in separate areas. This paper presents some higher education teaching limitations to address new technological challenges in new buildings design.
- Hydroagriculture project - A Portuguese case studyPublication . Silva, Paulo; Felgueiras, Carlos; Almeida Santos, Adriano Manuel; Pereira, FilipeWater plays an essential role in the social fabric and comfort of society, as it plays an important role in our survival and subsistence, in its accessibility, in economic activities, and in the particular case of this study, in the manufacture of agricultural products and activities. In a developing society, and with the number of the human population increasing, consumerism takes place, resulting in an increasing need to use space, resources and food. Agriculture is an ancient activity that serves as the basis for ensuring the subsistence and resilience of the population, producing crops and different types of food, from vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds, etc... and they all have one thing in common: The existence of water. If there are fields suitable for agriculture, but there is no water, they become unusable. Water improvement and supply projects can drastically change this situation, thus stimulating agricultural production. The analysis of this case study, the largest hydroagriculture project in Europe nowadays, aims to highlight the importance of carrying out hydroagriculture projects and the impact they can have on society, demonstrating that this project considerably increases the production of the rice harvest in Portugal through the artificial irrigation of land that previously could not be used for this purpose.
- Engineering Education for a Sustainable Future A systematic literature review and a perspectivePublication . Silva, Paulo; Felgueiras, Carlos; Caetano, Nídia; Martins, Florinda; Onofrei, George; Blue, Juanita; Sintejudeanu, Mara; Acitores, Adela; Cruz, Francisco; Erro, Alfonso Martín; Moreno, Susana; Davey, Todd; Collins, Monica Holly; Spada, DominicEducation represents a fundamental pillar of society, being an important factor in shaping and building each individual for their future. It is common sense that society, like the world we live in, undergoes adaptations and modifications over time, especially due to the need to resolve issues that allow for improved comfort and greater chances of survival in these changes. There-fore, a question arises: what factor must be highlighted in order to respond to this need? Sustainability presents itself as a preponderant factor in humanity's response to building a more sober, educated, conscious and cohesive society. Educating an individual with tools and qualities based on sustainability, who in the future will have the capacity to reach many other individuals in an educational context, presents itself as a possible way to enhance and disseminate sustainability in social, academic and professional aspects. This study is based on the premise of an ERASMUS + project that aims to provide a possibility for a more sustainable education in the field of Engineering, having as its central point a holistic approach that must be the center of society: Sustainability.
- Skills in Engineering Education and its challenges to the labour marketPublication . Silva, Paulo; García-Holgado, Alicia; Felgueiras, CarlosSince childhood, education is an essential element in shaping and building knowledge, wisdom and character. What the child absorbs in this knowledge shapes their interest in their attitudes and preferences, directly impacting their school career and, consequently, their professional career. More importantly, education directly impacts the skills each individual is equipped with and can use daily. Skills in the field of sustainability, for example, have become quite relevant nowadays as we need increasingly more technological solutions that have less impact on the environment. If students do not have these skills, then this will mean that professionals in the labor market will not have sufficient skills to respond to the needs of society, and consequently fail to meet national and governmental commitments to outlined goals. It therefore becomes important to understand students' needs for a more complete education adjusted to the needs of society, preparing these future professionals for an increasingly technological, demanding and competitive labor market. This study aims to provide an overview and approach to some findings within the scope of an educational project in STEAM learning and an ERASMUS + project related to education and sustainability.
- Energy Policies, Education and Sustainable Development Goals Applied to Low Developed Countries - a Symbiotic Case StudyPublication . Martins, Florinda; Silva, Paulo; Felgueiras, Carlos; Almeida Santos, Adriano Manuel; Pereira, Filipe; Caetano, NídiaEnergy, its use and management, weighs heavily on the burden that each society can impose on a fragile balance of nature, with implications not only environmental and financial, but also social, creating jobs and improving quality of life. Devising strategies that combine these three factors are a valuable option that will yield good results, meeting the challenge of fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The most important thing is to implement the old maxim: "no one is left behind", so low developed countries are an opportunity to achieve impressive results, while allowing them to improve their way of life and their comfort. It’s often said that ‘action begets reaction’, so any positive action taken in the community can have social repercussions, such as improving the quality of education and knowledge about sustainability. This study will provide an overview of how energy management and environmental mitigation strategies can impact underdeveloped countries.
- ICEER2018@Prague: researching towards a sustainable futurePublication . Caetano, Nídia; Felgueiras, CarlosThe 5th edition of the International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, ICEER 2018, took place in the end of July. The maturity of this conference series has now been reached, with a large number of participants from academia, as well as a few coming from the professional field. Linking together energy and environment research is not an easy task. However, it is now understood that these fields are interconnected and that the answer to the challenge of a sustainable future depend enormously on the willingness and capability of problem thinking in an integrated manner. This paper presents a brief summary of the participants in ICEER 2018 contribution towards sustainability, through energy and environment research.
- Challenges and singularities of Energy Poverty in Portuguese society: A case studyPublication . Silva, Paulo; Felgueiras, CarlosThe impossibility and lack of accessibility for several households in Europe to resort to efficient heating and cooling technologies in their homes or to carry out energy rehabilitation in buildings has been a growing concern, not only in the European Union, but also in many Member States. These households that are energetically vulnerable belong to the statistics of the phenomenon identified as energy poverty. Multiple factors justify the growing concern about this problem within the European Union, either due to the need to assess the consequences of the liberalization of energy markets on the most vulnerable consumers, or due to the creation, exposure and identification of situations of poverty, social exclusion, health problems public health, decrease in comfort and living conditions. These factors tend to influence the country's macroeconomic outlook to the extent that they undermine energy policy options, reducing their efficiency and making it difficult to implement energy policies that are more environmentally friendly and capable of facing the challenges of climate change. Since the built environment is the largest consumer of energy, the fight against energy poverty should be encouraged in this sector due to the impact it may have on the country's socioeconomic indicators.
- Development of a decentralized monitoring system of domestic water consumptionPublication . Kuski, L.; Maia, E.; Moura, P.; Caetano, Nídia; Felgueiras, CarlosInefficient use of water represents a major source of direct cost of water production, but especially of excessive energy use to purify it. Greater efficiency could be achieved if management were supported by objective data in addition to the rules of good practice that have been disseminated. This work aims to contribute directly to the reduction of water consumption and indirectly to the huge amount of energy used to pump water from its reserves and then to treat and make it drinkable through the use of a decentralized consumption monitoring system.
- Indicators Used in the Energy SectorPublication . Martins, Florinda; Felgueiras, CarlosWorld energy mix still depends heavily on fossil fuels but the foreseen increase demand, the scarcity of those resources, their unevenly distribution as well as other factors such as economic burdens due to fossil fuel prices and climate change concerns contributed to the establishment and implementation of new policies in the energy sector. Renewable energy sources are being promoted worldwide as a pathway to reduce external energy dependency, moving towards lower carbon energy systems. It is important to policy makers, investors and other stakeholders to have tools for deciding which policies, investments and measures should be implemented in the future. Thus indicators play very important role for fulfilling that task. This work present a structured presentation of several indicators commonly used to compare solutions in the energy domain.