The implementation of new pedagogical methods and innovations has increased in a substantial way all over the European countries. Thus, one of the most common aspects that have been appreciated is such a different way of organizing the students’ curricula involving them in their own education/learning process, as they became now active players. Other aspects to consider are undoubtedly the major approximation to the real scenario, moving away from the excessively theoretical learning schemes comparing to the traditional educational systems, being much more transparent since the student knows well in advance all about the objectives and how he/she will be evaluated at the end of their educational stage.

In particular, this work will be dealing with the so-called Service Learning (SL) as an educational proposal that combines learning while providing a community service in a single, well-articulated project in which participants (usually working in groups) are trained inside a real scenario with the aim of articulating measurable improvements. The institutionalization of such methodology is the way to be able to give the necessary recognition and sustainability to any proposal that, without any doubt, is attracting more and more students.

The problem-based issue is focused on a specific practice of a master module lectured at the University of the Basque Country about using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to carry on the necessary actions to improve sustainability on a combustion chamber fired nowadays by natural gas. The challenge proposed is to replace natural gas with hydrogen, maintaining the thermal power provided by the burner of the combustion chamber, so that the environmental advantages of this new carbon-free fuel are highlighted. Students must introduce the necessary steps and adjustments to the numerical model, whereas experimental values will be provided, aiming to validate it.

The practical report will be designed accordingly and marked through one of the seminar sessions of this module, so all the modifications inserted will be carefully described to pursue the objectives.

This teaching modality has been presented as an excellent opportunity to develop constructivist situational learning, aimed at developing specific and transversal skills under a decarbonization era we are living in now.

Keywords: Higher education, Service-learning, new teaching innovations, engineering technology, sustainability.