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Scientific literacy, quantitative reasoning, and systems thinking are essential components of developing a sustainability mindset, and thus should form elements of introductory courses in sustainability so that such mindsets can be cultivated from the outset of a student’s academic studies, particularly in engineering. Evaluations of selected student works (9 respondents from 22 enrolled students) suggest that engineering students demonstrate proficiency with well-structured quantitative tasks, and can make progress adopting mathematical habits such as using estimations and orders of magnitued. However, as the activities become less well prescribed, such as in drawing concept maps to illustrate earth systems cycles, they are not as fluent. Further, they need to develop more practice to do “higher order” tasks, such as interpreting, cross-checking, citing, and communicating ideas outside of their routine. Nevertheless, the results of self-assessment surveys are generally positive and suggest that students are aware of the need to achieve the higher order expectations. The results open questions indicate that several students authentically learned scientific and quantitative elements of sustainability thinking, as evidenced by their articulation of specific details about systems thinking, chemistry, and mathematics.