Abstract:

Sustainability challenges such as municipal solid waste (MSW) management demand both technical competence and regulatory understanding. However, implementing interdisciplinary learning in higher education is difficult when courses differ in level, assessment structure, and learning outcomes. This paper reports a coordinated multi-course community-engaged learning experience developed at the Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), Brazil, connecting three courses offered in the same academic period: Applied Thermodynamics (MEB-13, mandatory undergraduate course), Renewable Energy Fundamentals (ME-216, elective open to undergraduate and graduate students), and Environmental Law for Engineering (HUM-26, elective for undergraduate students). The common anchor across the courses was a shared technical field visit to the municipal landfill and the landfill-gas power plant (URBAM, São José dos Campos). This joint experience provided a real-world reference point for subsequent work, while allowing students from different courses to observe the same infrastructure and constraints. In the engineering courses (MEB-13 and ME-216), students developed final projects focused on estimating electricity generation potential from MSW and biogas, translating field observations into modeling assumptions, system boundaries, and performance indicators. In the Environmental Law course (HUM-26), students conducted outreach-oriented actions in partnership with a local recycling cooperative (Cooperativa São Vicente), addressing practical aspects of waste valorization and communication. Reported outputs included the implementation of aluminum-can collection points on campus and testing tools for can compaction, as well as the development of a renewed visual identity and social media presence to improve visibility for the cooperative. The paper describes the instructional sequence and coordination mechanisms used to align timing and thematic focus across the three courses, and discusses implementation challenges typical of community engagement, such as limitations in partner organizations’ management capacity and student dropout, as well as mitigation strategies. Although the experience provided interdisciplinary exposure through a common field context, it also revealed the limits of parallel course designs in achieving deeper integration. As a main conclusion, an improvement roadmap is proposed for the next edition: incorporating energy-system considerations into the Law course deliverables, and embedding regulatory/governance aspects into the engineering project requirements, thereby moving from shared exposure to more explicit interdisciplinary integration while preserving course-specific learning outcomes.

Keywords:

Community-engaged learning, education for sustainability, coordinated courses.