Engineering & Society Courses & Programming

For U of T Engineering undergraduate students

Engineering is a socio‑technical practice embedded in culture, policy, and power. Examining the relationship between engineering and society prepares engineers to address complex challenges with awareness, empathy, and accountability. Understanding the role and impact of this relationship strengthens students’ judgment, enables responsibility, and contributes to increased public trust. ISTEP works to embed engineering and society learning around engineering and society throughout engineering education at U of T.

Engineering & Society Minors & Certificates

Certificate in Engineering Leadership (AECERLEAD)

Certificate in Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering (AECERJEDI)

Engineering & Society Courses

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Coordinated through the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, the Clarke Prize Environmental Design Challenge is a two-day hackathon exclusively for undergraduate engineering students. The event takes place on Saturday, January 27 and Sunday, January 28th, 2024. In this intensive learning experience, students will hone their leadership development and communication skills with an accountability and responsibility for the environment. Participants engage in a cumulative design challenge pitch and proposal before a panel of judges with a top prize of $10,000, second-place prize of $7,000 and a third-place prize of $5,000.

TEP324: Engineering and Social Justice

Students will learn how to initiate, facilitate and moderate discussion between stakeholders with differing and/or opposing values and ideologies. The relationship between engineering and the concepts of social justice to develop the skills needed to take practical action in a complex world is explored.

This course facilitates building personal responses to ideas of justice, bias and marginalization as students will rehearse action through theatre techniques, developed to enable communities to practice and critique action.

TEP327: Engineering and Law

This course is designed to highlight the amount of overlap between engineering and law in today's society. Some examples include: acting as an expert witness, preparing a patent, creating a contract for supplies and more.

By the end of this course, students will be able to navigate the legal complexities in their professional and business lives.

TEP435: The Measure of All Things: Sensors and data for sustainable development

Through the use of lectures, case studies, readings, and guest speakers working at the health-water-climate nexus of global challenges, students will learn about innovations in sensing, and data analytics that are helping to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

They will learn to analyze and assess historical data and data that is currently being collected in the global development and engineering space and will critically examine examples of biases and flaws with the ways we develop sensors/measurements and train algorithms.

TEP440: To Engineer is Human

At its core, engineering is a human activity geared at helping to attain human goals, which requires the integration of many viewpoints, technical and non-technical.

Students interested in exploring the often-overlooked human story behind engineering feats will dig into the socio, cultural, political and/or legal backstory of a technology of their choice.

TEP447: The Art of Ethical & Equitable Decision Making in Engineering

Engineering students will navigate the ambiguous world of engineering ethics and equity using case studies drawn from the careers of Canadian engineers, focusing on multiple levels of practice: from design work to organizational practice and governance.

In addition to being exposed to a range of ethical theories, the PEO code of ethics and the legal context of engineering ethics, students will engage in ethical decision-making on a weekly basis.

TEP448: System Mapping

System mapping is a system thinking tool frequently used in fields such as public health and environmental policy to describe complex, multi-stakeholder problems.

Students explore fields outside of engineering critical to these challenges, including public policy, sociology and law. The course emphasizes problem definition, not problem solution, though it is expected maps will point to potential paths for solution.

Engineering & Society Co-Curricular Programs

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The Clarke Prize Environmental Design Challenge

Unlock your potential as an environmental change-maker and gain hands-on experience by applying your engineering skills to the Clarke Prize Environmental Design Challenge.

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