Developing sustainable literacy in industrial design education: a three year action research project enabling industrial design students to design for sustainability

摘要: This thesis is an investigation into why Industrial Design students cannot Design for Sustainability (DfS); that is, students are unable to design in a way that can contribute in real terms to a sustainable society, economy or ecology. To proactively address the question, a three year action research project at the University of Western Sydney took place within the sustainable design stream of the undergraduate Bachelor of Design/Industrial Design program. This study examined over 400 conceptual DfS scenarios, which were the outcomes of student assessment tasks at the end of the sustainable design stream. Using content analysis, the ‘conceptual design scenarios’ were examined against progressive DfS theory to locate the effectiveness of both the theoretical and pedagogical interventions. Through the process, insight into Industrial Design Education for Sustainability was gained to inform the three key findings of …