Understanding of the Concept of Sustainability Via Short Written Assignment in Thermodynamics 1

The subject of Thermodynamics is important for undergraduate students taking the engineering degree, in particular mechanical engineering. It has become the core subject for junior undergraduate engineering students in all universities offering the Mechanical Engineering programme. The subject deals with the fundamental and principle of the energy conservation and emphasizes on the foundation of the thermal science and its related concepts. With the current energy scenario in the world, together with an alarming situation related to environmental issues, young engineers are expected to be sensible in balancing future development and various environmental concerns. Thus many institutions have embarked on the introduction of the sustainability concept to graduating engineers. Different methods were introduced in order to ensure that graduating engineers are well-equipped with the knowledge and understanding of sustainability related issues. One method is to slowly integrates the concept during the early years in the engineering program. This paper describes the investigation of the effectiveness of such introduction of the sustainability concept through one of the most important subject in earlier years of engineering program. In this subject, the concept of sustainability is introduced through lectures, tutorials and assignment. In general, the assessments were distributed through written mode such as tutorial assignment, homework assignment, midterm examination and final examination.