ABSTRACT
Purpose>The inclusion of sustainability in higher education courses has been debated in recent decades and has gained particular emphasis throughout the COVID-19. This paper aims to show how the context of the pandemic, which demanded the transition from in-person classes to virtual classes, was used to illustrate better the concepts of life cycle assessment (LCA) for Production Engineering students in a Brazilian University.Design/methodology/approach>The research strategy used was action research. Throughout the discipline offering, the environmental impacts resulting from in-person and remote classes were comparatively assessed through a practical activity using LCA. Students' behaviour and perception of the activities were recorded by the professor and discussed with the other researchers on the team. At the end of the course, students answered a questionnaire to assess their satisfaction with different aspects of the discipline, and these data were analysed via Fuzzy Delphi.Findings>The results focus on discussing the pedagogical aspects of this experience and not the environmental impacts resulting from each class modality. It was possible to notice a greater engagement of students when using a project that directly involved their daily activities (food, transportation, use of electronics, etc.) compared to the traditional approach of teaching LCA concepts. In this traditional approach, the examples focussed on the industrial sector, a more distant context from the reality of most students. Student feedback demonstrated great acceptance by them regarding the approach adopted.Originality/value>This study contributes to expanding debates about sustainability insertion in higher education and the training of professionals more aligned with the sustainable development agenda.
ABSTRACT
Purpose The inclusion of sustainability in higher education courses has been debated in recent decades and has gained particular emphasis throughout the COVID-19. This paper aims to show how the context of the pandemic, which demanded the transition from in-person classes to virtual classes, was used to illustrate better the concepts of life cycle assessment (LCA) for Production Engineering students in a Brazilian University. Design/methodology/approach The research strategy used was action research. Throughout the discipline offering, the environmental impacts resulting from in-person and remote classes were comparatively assessed through a practical activity using LCA. Students' behaviour and perception of the activities were recorded by the professor and discussed with the other researchers on the team. At the end of the course, students answered a questionnaire to assess their satisfaction with different aspects of the discipline, and these data were analysed via Fuzzy Delphi. Findings The results focus on discussing the pedagogical aspects of this experience and not the environmental impacts resulting from each class modality. It was possible to notice a greater engagement of students when using a project that directly involved their daily activities (food, transportation, use of electronics, etc.) compared to the traditional approach of teaching LCA concepts. In this traditional approach, the examples focussed on the industrial sector, a more distant context from the reality of most students. Student feedback demonstrated great acceptance by them regarding the approach adopted. Originality/value This study contributes to expanding debates about sustainability insertion in higher education and the training of professionals more aligned with the sustainable development agenda.
ABSTRACT
The face-to-face university classes were abruptly transferred to virtual environments during the pandemic of COVID-19, which generated changes in teaching routine and environmental impacts associated with them. Considering this reality, studies comparing the environmental impacts of face-to-face and remote classes can be of great value. In this sense, this study performed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of face-to-face and remote university classes in a Higher Education institution in the context of COVID-19. Inputs of energy and materials (food, office materials), outputs (air and water emissions, and solid waste) were gathered in situ for the functional unit of 2 hours of face-to-face or virtual class per week for 60 engineering students. Thirteen midpoint impact categories were selected by using the recent Impact World+ midpoint method for Continental Latin America, version 1.251. In the literature, most papers about the environmental management of educational activities focus on the energy efficiency of buildings and electronic equipment during their use. But this study revealed other environmental hotspots primarily associated with meal consumption followed by ethanol fuel use. Meal consumption patterns can be explained by the fact that people usually eat more often during home-office activities. Otherwise, the transportation impacts due to ethanol use are related mainly to face-to-face classes, as much transport is required such as for food supply and student transportation. Finally, an uncertainty and a sensitivity analysis were designed for the LCA conclusions. We concluded that remote classes during the COVID-19 pandemic tend to minimize the overall evaluated impacts to ten of the thirteen impact categories. An optimal scenario was also proposed showing an overall minimization of the impacts by up to 57%, if a hybrid class model were to be adopted.