In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 17, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome guests from theLimerick post-primary school, Thomond Community College – Shaun Donegan, the engineering teacher and Transition Year students, Patrick Rwasibo and Josh Cronin.

The students and their teacher recount the deep learning in STEAM education they experienced from participating in theproject entitled DESIGN A SUSTAINABLE VILLAGE IN IRELAND IN 2050. The project was offered to schools in Limerick as a pilot partnership between EPI•STEM at the University of Limerick, the HUNT Museum and the Limerick Education Support Centre.

Here the engineering teacher and TY students share their futuristic design, the ways they developed a sustainability and social justice mindset, and the importance of planning,doing and reflecting together on using engineering for the greater good of society and the local environment.

The group worked with another engineering teacher Aidan O’Connell and included additional students, Melios Smalis, Ciara Quaid, Emer Quinn and Sandra Galecka. They recount a visit to the Cloughjordan Eco-Village in Co. Tipperary and a visit to the Hunt Museum for additional inspiration.

The group paid attention to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in relation to reducing poverty. They were interested in the construction of a democratic village where egalitarian relations existed between people rather than the more familiar hierarchical relations.

The musical selection today is an original song played onacoustic guitar by Ayyaz Mehmood, a composer and final year student in Performing Arts and World Music in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Ayyaz is singing his own composition, a bilingual love song in Urdu and English called ‘Widhu’.