Abstract:

Nowadays university education is facing the big challenge of creating future professionals involved in the pursuit of solutions of real-world problems. One of the best practices to accomplish this challenge is through learning based on the development of specific solutions and Research-based Learning. Both methodologies are used parallelly and result in being successful for the objective mentioned above. Also, these methodologies are essential for the creation of an innovative product or an innovative process for undergraduate students. The purpose of this article is to share the educational experience that was realized in the Project Evaluation at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, which consisted in the study of the usage of the banana peel as an organic absorbent, capable of eliminating heavy metals from water. Particularly, the filtration levels of the peel were determined to reduce the mercury levels. As a final product students created a prototype of a banana-based filter for domestic usage.

This article describes the usage of the didactic techniques mentioned above during the course. The Evaluations of transversal competitions carried over and the applied strategies for the students to propose creative solutions to the problem and conclude the project successfully, are also discussed in this article.

Keywords:

Engineering education, Research-based Learning innovative products, Research-based Learning, trasversal competences, undergraduate education.