The City of 1,5 Degree

What will a city look like at 1.5 degree Celsius temperature increase, or what should a city look like? Global warming requires us to change and adapt. Where will we live, how do we travel, what will our grocery store look like, and many more questions and issues come up. We need solutions for these matters, and we need them fast.

In this course, 2nd year bachelor’s students from several study programes at Eindhoven University, Wageningen University, Utrecht University and UMU Utrecht (EWUU alliance), collaborated, each with their own expertise, to work towards out-of-the-box, scientifically sound solutions for the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).

Practical information

• This challenge started on February 5th, 2024 until April 12th 2024
• This challenge was for 2nd year Bachelor’s students from the EWUU alliance
• The Study load varied per institute: 5 EC (TU/e), 6 EC (WUR) and 7.5 EC (UU/UMCU) Achieved through extra assignments
• The course was in English

Teaching method

The overall course topic was ‘Sustainable city of the future. The city of 1.5 degrees.’ Students formed interdisciplinary groups to work on the course topic and a related challenge defined by the societal partner (municipality of Almere). They got to know each other’s disciplinary backgrounds, defined their interdisciplinary project focus and distributed the work. The final result was a visualization of their sustainable challenge solution presented in the form of a physical or digital design and substantiated by a written group report.

The students met the lecturers and fellow students using innovative synchronous online learning tools, like the Virtual Classroom. The purpose of the inter-university collaboration is to meet people outside of the students’ habitat and to benefit from the expertise and perspectives those other people offer.