After 10 years and 300 students. Our LCA teaching experience.

Paper in proceeding, 2002

Our LCA teaching experience started with organizing the first LCA course in Sweden in 1992 — it was a course on a national level for doctoral students. After that, we continued with one LCA course each year for undergraduate students (3rd or 4th year students). During the first years (1993-1995), the course was given as a summer course for international students. But since 1996, the LCA course is given as an ordinary, elective course for all engineering students at Chalmers, attracting som 30 students every year. Most of them are Chalmers students, but a number of students from Göteborg University, doctoral students and working engineers from around Sweden also find their way to our course. In addition to the LCA course, we also give "the 2 hour lecture" orientation about LCA in the compulsory environmental course for 1st/2nd year students at Chalmers, and we have run around 25 LCA projects as MSc Diploma projects. Based on our broad experience, we will talk about how LCA education can aim at different levels of understanding (from the 'know about" level, via the "reflect critically" level, to the "carry out" level) and what this implies concerning reading material, exercises, the use of LCA software and LCA manuals. We will also talk about student reactions to working in interdisciplinary groups and with open problems.