Inclusion of the Sustainable Development Goals in an Engineering – Biomimetics and Sustainability – Course Curricula

This paper presents the experience of including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the Biomimetics and Sustainability course at Tecnologico de Monterrey, a general engineering education subject of the TEC 21 Model. The work was conducted in six groups during the Spring and Fall terms of 2022, accounting for 194 students. In this assignment, students had to prepare a proposal for using wind or solar resources to generate electricity in a region of their choice, making all the necessary research, suppositions, and calculations to ensure the proposed alternative was enough to provide the required energy. In addition, they had to select three or more SDGs (with their respective goals) that were most in line with their proposal and justify the reason for their choice. Students’ reports were assessed with rubrics and checklists, considering the accomplishment of the report components and the completeness of their argumentation. Most students selected SDGs #7, “Affordable and clean energy”, #11, “Sustainable cities and communities”, and #13, “Climate action”. In an anonymous survey, students agreed that learning becomes more significant by including the SDGs in the class assignment. We hope this work motivates more teachers to incorporate the SDGs in the different projects or proposals their students carry out in any subject, whether their institution has a sustainability plan.