Educator Downloads

Open-Access Resources for Socially Engaged Engineering & Design

Do you want your students to…

Connect technical concepts to the actual problems and constraints engineers face in their work?
Understand how engineering choices shape risk, harm, and benefits for people, societies, and environments, especially those with limited power or visibility?
Practice reasoning through uncertainty and tradeoffs where there isn’t one right answer?

These resources are:

Free – Socially Engaged Engineering & Design resources for your courses under a Creative Commons license.
Flexible & relevant across disciplines and levels – Materials have been used in first-year courses, senior capstones, and engineering science courses in many disciplines.
Easy to integrate – 1–3 hours prep time and no ethics, social science, or discussion facilitation background needed.
Comprehensive – Packages contain everything you need to teach a 50-80 minute session or asynchronous learning block: slides, activities, questions, student readings, instructor guidance, & more.
Tested & research-based – Developed at University of Michigan College of Engineering, refined in hundreds of classrooms, and supported by peer-reviewed research.

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Learn more about what’s inside each Educator Download and how they’re used.
Learn more about C-SED’s approach.

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Engineering Trust: A Case Study of AirbnbLearn how design decisions at Airbnb facilitated discrimination by users, analyze the steps leadership took to reframe their design problem, and assess how their solutions addressed the underlying causes.

New This Month!

Engineering Diagnoses: A Case Study of the Global Lung Function InitiativeLearn about the debates over adjusting lung function measurements by race and discuss the diagnostic and health implications of using race-based and race-neutral algorithms in spirometry.

New This Month!

Preparing and Conducting Interviews in Engineering and DesignLearn the about purpose of interviews in engineering and design, discuss different approaches and goals, explore best practices, and practice developing interview protocols and conducting stakeholder interviews.

Introduction to the Socially Engaged Design Process ModelInvestigate the benefits and limitations of design process models, learn about the Socially Engaged Design Process Model, and explore applications of SED to real-world design challenges.

Stakeholder EngagementDefine, identify, and classify stakeholders and analyze relationships between groups of stakeholders, conflicting needs, and tradeoffs between groups using visual mapping techniques.

Engineering Safety: A Case Study of Volvo’s Whiplash Protection SystemExplore how Volvo engineers developed requirements and testing procedures, consider the efficacy of their approach, and guide students in reflecting on how engineers account for human variability.