Dear Fellow IRNES folk,
I have recently received the following details
of a forthocoming interdisciplinary conference which may be highly
relevant to some fellow members,and therefore attach relevant
details. Would anyone interested please follow the contact details
given below.
Best wishes,
Piers Stephens
Educating Technologists For Environmental Awareness
In recent years there has been a growing recognition of the crucial role
of technology in shaping the environment and in creating and solving
environmental problems. At the same time, some senior members of the
technology professions have begun to call for environmental issues to be
included in the education of technologists as part of a more general
awareness of the relationship between technology and society. There is an
evolving belief that it is no longer enough for technologists to develop
technological products - they must also be aware of the social and ethical
context within which they operate. Dillon has remarked in the context of
engineering,
"... it is time that engineering finally gave up its borrowed scientific
paradigm of impersonal and objective action - and begin concentrating on
what it claims to be for - supporting people in ways appropriate to their
many complex and varied societies."
These developments represent a move towards technology becoming more
people centred and less product centred. This is a welcome change which
needs to be reinforced by changing the emphasis of the education which
technologists receive.
At present most higher education courses in technology concentrate on
developing technical competence. However, the recent pressure to
introduce key transferable skills into the undergraduate curriculum has
provided an ideal opportunity to rethink technology education. This
pressure has come from a recognition that some of the best graduates are
those that are rounded with such qualities as the ability to place
technical knowledge in a human context, to work in teams and relate to a
variety of different people, and to adapt to rapidly changing social
contexts at work. These skills can be acquired more easily if the
teaching of technology is placed in a human context and not presented as
somehow being totally objective and impersonal. An additional benefit is
that such an approach may help redress the current imbalance between men
and women entering technology. Adelman has noted,
"Engineering would be attractive to more women, in particular, if the
richness of practice, with all its contextual relativism, were the
framework for education ... all branches [of engineering] encounter
problems brimming with ambiguities and conditional situations."
This seminar will seek to examine ways in which the education of
technologists can be placed in a more human context and it will focus on
the specific area of introducing environmental issues into the technology
curriculum.
Adelman, C. (1999), _Women and men of the engineering path : A model for
analyses of undergraduate careers_, Report no. PLLI-98-8055, US Department
of Education, Washington, DC. (Quoted by Chris Dillon in paper below).
Dillon, Chris, _Rethinking Engineering Education_, Conference of the
Professors and Heads of Electronic Engineering, University of Derby, March
1999.
______________________________________________________________________
Educating Technologists for Environmental Awareness
09.00 - 10.00 Registration and Coffee
10.00 - 13.00 Morning Session. Chair, Dr Paul Urwin.
10.00 - 10.30 Martin Hargreaves. Director of the Centre for Technology
and the Environment, De Montfort University.
An overview of the relationship between technology and the
environment and the implications for technological
education.
10.30 - 11.00 Peter Riley. Consultant in Engineering Project Management.
The principles of environmental law as they affect
engineering decision making.
11.00 - 11.30 Coffee
11.30 - 12.00 Professor Paul Luker. Dean of the Faculty of Computing
Sciences and Engineering, De Montfort University.
Title to be confirmed.
12.00 - 12.30 Keynote Address
Professor Robin Attfield. Professor of philosophy,
Cardiff University.
Environmental ethics and technological education.
12.30 - 13.00 Discussion of morning presentations. Dr Paul Urwin.
13.00 - 14.00 Lunch
14.00 - 16.30 Afternoon Session. Chair, Dr Richard Prettyjohns.
14.00 - 14.45 Discussion groups. Leaders: Professor Paul Luker, Professor
Simon Rogerson, Dr Ben Fairweather, Dr Paul Urwin.
14.45 - 15.15 Coffee
15.15 - 16.00 Plenary discussion.
16.00 - 16.15 Launch of the Centre for Technology and the Environment.
Martin Hargreaves.
16.15 - 16.30 Closing address. Member of the Senior Executive,
De Montfort University.
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