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Work-In-Progress: Integrating Sustainability Across the Chemical Engineering Curriculum

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

WIP: Student Success and Sustainability

Tagged Division

Chemical Engineering Division (ChED)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48546

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Paper Authors

biography

Christopher V.H.-H. Chen Columbia University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-1477-6024

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Christopher V.H.-H. Chen, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the Discipline of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University. His teaching and research interests include the application of case- and problem-based approaches to STEM learning experiences; the promise and challenges of online learning; how social and emotional interventions improve engineering education; and preparing graduate students as future change leaders within the academy.

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biography

Courtney Pfluger Northeastern University

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Dr. Courtney Pfluger is an Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University. In 2011, began as an Assistant Teaching Professor in First-year Engineering Program where she redesigned the curriculum and developed courses with sustainability and clean water themes. In 2017, she moved to ChE Department where she has taught core courses and redesigned the Capstone design course with inclusion pedagogy practices.
She has also developed and ran 9 faculty-led, international programs to Brazil focused on Sustainable Energy. She has won several teaching awards including ChE Sioui Award for Excellence in Teaching, COE Essigmann Outstanding Teaching Award, and AIChE Innovation in ChE Education Award. She also won best paper at the Annual ASEE conference in both Design in Engineering Education Division and the Professional Interest Council 5 (PIC V) for her research in Inclusive Team-based learning. In 2023, she won the Northeastern Inaugural Global Educator Award for her impactful work developing and running international educational programs.

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Abstract

The United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development represents a global commitment to addressing the world's most pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges with 17 goals. Specifically, goal 12 looks to address sustainable consumption and production patterns which has many ties to the chemical engineering field. Therefore, teaching chemical engineers to consider and evaluate the impacts of their designs on the environment, individuals, and society is imperative to achieve this sustainable development goal. This need has become so important that ABET has even began to include these considerations in student outcome 2, which currently includes the “…consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors.” In this work-in-progress paper, chemical engineering educators at two large, private, R1 universities present the ways they have introduced and engaged students in considering sustainability, and share sustainability-informed student learning outcomes that were assessed via surveys. Specifically, examples across three courses–a Material & Energy Balances course for sophomores, a senior capstone design course, and a senior elective on green chemical engineering–will be used to demonstrate how students learned and applied sustainability values through their engineering design projects. Students in these courses will complete (or have already completed) a survey of self-assessed knowledge of the course learning outcomes from each design course before and after the courses. Data from these learning outcome surveys will inform how well the courses addressed sustainable topics, the outcomes for ABET outcome 2, and how the students felt about the applications of these topics in the courses. The following questions will be addressed: (1) How can we better address sustainability topics into chemical engineering courses? (2) How could we implement sustainability topics throughout the chemical engineering curriculum to improve students understanding of the need and ability to apply these topics?

Chen, C. V., & Pfluger, C. (2024, June), Work-In-Progress: Integrating Sustainability Across the Chemical Engineering Curriculum Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48546

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