Undergraduate Course: Community Engagement with Technology for Sustainable Development (SCEE08022)
Course Outline
| School | School of Engineering |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course offers students the opportunity to benefit from enriched experiential interdisciplinary learning. Students will develop new skills and graduate attributes such as interdisciplinary research, community partner engagement, research design, reflective research, negotiation, and critical thinking. The course will specifically use an education for sustainable development (ESD) framework and encourage students to design their research projects through the lens of the three ESD pillars, economic, environmental and social. |
| Course description |
The student research teams are introduced to a teaching mentor who will guide them through each phase of the course, via weekly meetings. The student mentor will provide each research team with a list of potential community partners (associated with major community engagement initiatives such as the EPSRC Our Health Programme) who are primed to propose a range of real-world issues that span all aspects of sustainable development from food insecurity, health and well-being, clean water and sanitation, low carbon transport/homes, peace and social justice to quality education and employment.
The course comprises of two phases
Phase 1 - the student teams meet their teaching mentors and review potential community partners and begin an induction to community partner engagement, interdisciplinary research and sustainable technologies. Expertise in these areas will draw from community engagement expertise from across different disciplines. Students will form interdisciplinary research teams and work together to develop a community partner engagement plan, that involves (i) identification of target community partner (ii) contact, communications and rapport building (iii) designing/planning knowledge exchange activities to identify priority issues specified by community partner.
Phase 2 - Student research teams will conduct a rapid review to synthesise current data that offers practical sustainable technological solutions to priority issues. Student research teams will produce a detailed storyboard for a short format video that tells a visual story about the sustainable technology they have identified that addresses their community partners-real-world issue. At the end of Phase 2 each student will submit an assessed, structured reflective journal designed to encourage deep reflective practice.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 2,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 16,
External Visit Hours 10,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 2,
Formative Assessment Hours 2,
Summative Assessment Hours 4,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
160 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework 100% |
| Feedback |
Mentors will offer feedback during student team meetings and through formative feedback. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Work effectively in an interdisciplinary team to develop an effective engagement plan and critically assess real-world issues proposed by community partners, making use of different disciplinary perspectives.
- Understand the key principles of the role of technologies within sustainable development, the use of community engagement as an approach for enabling technology development and social justice.
- Critique established ideas, concepts and techniques drawn from current knowledge, and use and adapt relevant disciplinary knowledge to describe practical sustainable technological solutions.
- Communicate research information, ideas and arguments effectively by drawing on science and marketing communication techniques and frameworks.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will co-construct knowledge through an experiential community engagement approach, involving the production of an effective engagement plan and detailed video framework template (SCQF 1 and 2).
Students will conduct a rapid review to critically evaluate evidence-based sustainable technological solutions (SCQF 3).
Students will use digital applications to process research data and present it creatively and effectively (SCQF 4).
Student research teams will develop communication and engagement skills within their student teams and with their community partners (SCQF characteristics 4 and 5).
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| Keywords | Experiential,Interdisciplinary,STEM,Sustainable Technologies,Community Engagement |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Helen Szoor-McElhinney
Tel:
Email: Helen.Szoor-McElhinney@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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