Introduction to Enabling the Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges for Educators
Inspiring action on the Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges empowers us to collaborate to improve life for Canadians and the World.
Challenges of the 21st Century require engineers to bring leadership, bold new ideas and innovations. To frame these challenges and to inspire engineering educators to prepare students to address these complex socio-technical issues, Engineering Deans Canada (EDC) have developed and endorsed the Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges (CEGC). The CEGC, created in 2019, capture the United Nations 17 sustainable development goals in a Canadian context. There are six CEGC:
CEGC 1) Resilient infrastructure
CEGC 2) Access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy
CEGC 3) Access to safe water in all communities
CEGC 4) Inclusive, safe, and sustainable cities
CEGC 5) Inclusive and sustainable industrialization
CEGC 6) Access to affordable and inclusive STEM education.
They reflect broad, integrative problems of deep societal importance, where leadership and expertise will chart the pathway towards solutions.
The document prepared by Engineering Deans Canada on Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges (2020-2030): Inspiring Action to Improve Life for Canadians and the World (Engineering Deans Canada, 2022) has been foundational in creating the content for this course. You can read the full document here:
There is a pressing need to build awareness of the CEGC and enable teaching by creating tangible examples and providing methods to bring interdisciplinary thinking of complex problems that will benefit the engineering profession and the Canadian society. This course intends to build awareness of the six CEGC among educators and learners by providing educators with digital resources and teaching tools to facilitate the introduction of the CEGC in curricular (e.g., courses) and extra-curricular activities (e.g., workshops). Addressing CEGC can be incorporated into a wide variety of courses, workshops, and other teaching delivery formats for all engineering disciplines, and at all levels of engineering programs. A modular approach will allow engineering educators to customize and enhance the learning in a way that fits the specific needs of each learning activity.
The Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges are broad but encapsulate areas that are pivotal in how the future is shaped. By raising awareness about these challenges, students will develop attributes and competencies by working in collaboration with people from other disciplines. These attributes include: the ability to design and create, the ability to integrate and solve, the understanding of business and innovation, the practice of being multicultural and diverse and the commitment to social consciousness and community. We’re ready to take this on.
The participation of educators and learners in this course offers an exciting learning journey to tackle the challenges and opportunities facing humanity and our natural world.
Book Cover Image Attribution
Red Maple Leaf on Water by Zachariah Garrison on Pexels is liscensed under CC0.
