Understanding Scale in Wicked Problems
of Sustainable Development: Who Needs
Dedicated Courses in Higher Education?
Sven Linow
1 Introduction
Are we teaching the right skills, competences and knowledge at university? This is an
age-old question, which constantly needs re-evaluating: Today’s graduates will live
in a world which is in serious danger of losing essential parts of its biosphere (Briggs
2017), with a fast changing climate triggering all kinds of secondary responses in the
system-earth (Wallace-Wells 2019), strong political reactions to slowing economic
growth in rich countries, as well as the siren-song of digital wonders and more. Our
society needs students to acquire robust problem solving skills, to understand largescale problems in the hope to find a viable path into a desirable or at least acceptable
future (Levrini et al. 2019), and to somehow survive and prosper in this evolving mess
by managing our large, urgent and actively developing problems. Our future holds
many wicked problems (Rittel and Webber 1973), which are by definition complex
and not constrained by discipline. They start with vague, unclear and conflicting
goals. Viable paths forward will include innovations and exnovations in technology
and society (e.g. Jonassen et al. 2006).
Learning and teaching to approach these challenges (often wicked problems, Rittel
and Webber 1973) of the real world must draw the real world into the classroom
(Biggs and Tang 2011) and to learn the necessary skills demands knowledge about
real world contexts and the workings of the system-earth. Such knowledge is not
acquired in an aseptic, pure and abstracted learning environment relying solely on
well-structured problems. Learning to tackle real-world problems needs real-world
problems in the classroom. Such problems are ill structured and present conflicting
goals that depend on the viewpoint of affected parties. Simplifying them in order to
S. Linow (B)
Department of Mechanical and Plastics Engineering, Hochschule Darmstadt,
University of Applied Sciences, Schöfferstraße 3, 64295 Darmstadt, Germany
e-mail: sven.linow@h-da.de
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_4
55
of Sustainable Development: Who Needs
Dedicated Courses in Higher Education?
Sven Linow
1 Introduction
Are we teaching the right skills, competences and knowledge at university? This is an
age-old question, which constantly needs re-evaluating: Today’s graduates will live
in a world which is in serious danger of losing essential parts of its biosphere (Briggs
2017), with a fast changing climate triggering all kinds of secondary responses in the
system-earth (Wallace-Wells 2019), strong political reactions to slowing economic
growth in rich countries, as well as the siren-song of digital wonders and more. Our
society needs students to acquire robust problem solving skills, to understand largescale problems in the hope to find a viable path into a desirable or at least acceptable
future (Levrini et al. 2019), and to somehow survive and prosper in this evolving mess
by managing our large, urgent and actively developing problems. Our future holds
many wicked problems (Rittel and Webber 1973), which are by definition complex
and not constrained by discipline. They start with vague, unclear and conflicting
goals. Viable paths forward will include innovations and exnovations in technology
and society (e.g. Jonassen et al. 2006).
Learning and teaching to approach these challenges (often wicked problems, Rittel
and Webber 1973) of the real world must draw the real world into the classroom
(Biggs and Tang 2011) and to learn the necessary skills demands knowledge about
real world contexts and the workings of the system-earth. Such knowledge is not
acquired in an aseptic, pure and abstracted learning environment relying solely on
well-structured problems. Learning to tackle real-world problems needs real-world
problems in the classroom. Such problems are ill structured and present conflicting
goals that depend on the viewpoint of affected parties. Simplifying them in order to
S. Linow (B)
Department of Mechanical and Plastics Engineering, Hochschule Darmstadt,
University of Applied Sciences, Schöfferstraße 3, 64295 Darmstadt, Germany
e-mail: sven.linow@h-da.de
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_4
55