Abstract:

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by Union Nations were defined in Rio+20 Conference. These SDGs are 17, and they define 169 different goals that countries have to reach in 2030. The awareness and implication of people about the importance of the SDGs enable the fulfilment of these goals in a satisfactory way and therefore, the university community must take part of these objectives and integrate the SDGs within their curricula in the different bachelors and master degrees. In light of this, students must also integrate the specific competences, outcomes competences and SDGs in their learning process. To reach this integration is necessary that lecturers develop active methodologies in which students work competences and SDGs jointly. This article shows a proposal that is being developed in the Campus of Alcoy at the Universitat Politècnica de València to develop a Project Based Learning (PBL) model integrating the SDGs. The proposal shows how PBL can support students and lecturers to promote the teaching of key competences for sustainability that are relevant for the SDGs.

The model is based on the Larmer and Mergendoller (2010) principles:
(i) the model has to teach significant content;
(ii) it requires critical thinking related to the SDGs, problem solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication;
(iii) it requires inquiry as part of the learning-process to construct something new taking into account the SDGs;
(iv) it is conducted around an open-ended driving question;
(v) it is based on the reverse learning process: from the final idea of the SDGs project to the process of construction;
(vi) it allows students’ independency in the decision-making process about the SDGs;
(vii) this model gives a great amount of feedback and
(viii) it allows to be presented explicitly to others and promote the awareness of the SDGs.

The article discusses the concept of PBL and SDGs; accounts for the general students capabilities, highlight the benefits of the PBL and discusses the integration of SDGs into Bachelor and Master Degrees curricula at the Campus Alcoy (UPV) through a PBL approach taking into account the aforementioned principles

Keywords:

Sustainable Development Goals, Higher Education, Project-Based Learning.