Abstract:

The project "Virtual Collaboration for Sustainable Engineering and Architecture Challenges", supported by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, is promoted by the Innovative Educational Group “Improvement of Mathematical Learning in Engineering Education”, that is, the group MAMI, from its Spanish acronym. The main goal of this project is the creation and the dissemination of an open video library as an alive teaching resource that can continue to grow over time. Videos are short and they are dedicated to the various aspects of sustainable development in engineering and architecture to which it is possible to contribute from mathematics, physics and graphic expression, emphasizing geometric concepts.

It is known that the challenges posed in applied problems have often been the origin of profound scientific developments and vice versa, a large number of theoretical results -in principle-, have given rise to unsuspected practical applications. Many of the ideas and methods in mathematics, physics and graphic expression are related to the optimization of very varied aspects and they have direct applications to sustainable development. In this way, the specific objectives of the project are: to show the capacity of these scientific fields to overcome engineering and architecture challenges linked to sustainability and to advance in multidisciplinary academic training.

This video library is then an open multidisciplinary resource, elaborated through virtual collaboration by a team of people from several universities and it can be useful for both undergraduate and graduate students, serving as motivation and as a seed for final degree projects. The videos can also be of help in the academic orientation of high school students and as base material for lifelong learning or MOOC. Moreover, the project aims to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) from mathematical, physical and graphic expression knowledge. In particular, the focus is set on SDG 4: "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all".

This approach of integrating social commitment into university academic training is the vision of the new alliance of European universities EELISA (European Engineering Learning Innovation and Science Alliance) and, within this alliance, it is the vision of one of its communities, SSERIES (Science for a Sustainable Envision of Reality and Information for an Engaged Society), to which the team of this project has recently joined.

Keywords:

Sustainability, optimization, engineering, architecture, video library, open educational resource.