What can engineers learn from the past? A potential role for history in engineering education.

Abstract

At present, in many societies, engineers play a significant role in solving problems of energy, transport, accommodation and production; but similar problems have been solved through technical and non-technical means for thousands of years. Numerous historical examples therefore exist, in which the ends of different approaches to problem-solving are apparent: some tending to produce socially and/or ecologically sustainable outcomes, and some less positive. Historians do not simply narrate the past, they explain and interpret changes and continuities by paying attention to larger issues of, for example, class, gender, polity and economy. Such historical narratives, we argue, may have a useful role to play in efforts to shift the perspective of engineering students away from a narrow focus on complex technical solutions, towards the broader context in which their problem-solving will take place. This ability to assess the relationships between engineering problem-solving and the broader social and environmental context is critical to the development of a more sustainable and socially-just engineering practice.

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