Work in Progress: Utilizing Change Strategies and Chemical Process Safety Resources to Incorporate Process Safety Education in the Unit Operations Courses in Public and Private Universities
- Conference
- Location
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Tampa, Florida
- Publication Date
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June 15, 2019
- Start Date
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June 15, 2019
- End Date
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June 19, 2019
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Chemical Engineering
- Page Count
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8
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--33578
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/33578
- Download Count
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521
Paper Authors
Tracy L. Carter Northeastern University
Tracy Carter earned her PhD in the Chemical Engineering department at Northeastern University in the summer of 2018 and is currently an instructor in the Unit Operations Laboratory at NU. She earned the M.S. degree in 1998 and the B.S. degree in 1993 from Northeastern University. Dr. Carter previously worked in the biotechnology field for CytoTherapeutics, designing medical devices using membrane cell encapsulation. She resides just outside of Boston, MA with husband, son, twin daughters and three cats. She is active in her community and is passionate about safety education.
Sarah A. Wilson University of Kentucky
Sarah Wilson is a lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Kentucky. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Rowan University in New Jersey before attending graduate school for her PhD at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. Sarah conducted her thesis research on the production of the anti-cancer compound Paclitaxel (Taxol) through the use of plant cell cultures from the Taxus Yew Tree. Throughout her time at Rowan and UMass, she developed a passion for undergraduate education. This passion led her to pursue a career as a lecturer, where she could focus on training undergraduate chemical engineering students. She has been teaching at UK since 2015 and has taught Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Computational Tools and the Unit Operations Laboratory. She is especially interested in teaching scientific communication and integration of process safety into the chemical engineering curriculum.
Samira Azarin
Samira Azarin is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. She earned her B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and went on to receive a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011.
Janie Brennan Washington University in St. Louis
Janie Brennan is a Lecturer of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 2015. Her primary focus is on the application of research-based teaching methods in engineering education.
Amy J. Karlsson
University of Maryland
orcid.org/0000-0002-9962-925X
Amy J. Karlsson is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland - College Park. She received her BS in chemical engineering from Iowa State University and her PhD in chemical engineering from the University Wisconsin - Madison. At the University of Maryland, she has taught Separations, Unit Operations, and Protein Engineering and enjoys mentoring students of all levels in research focused on protein and peptide design.
Chris Barr University of Michigan
Dr. Christopher Barr is the Instructional Laboratory Supervisor in the Chemical Engineering Department at University of Michigan. He obtained his Ph.D. at University of Toledo in 2013 and is a former Fellow in the N.S.F. GK-12 grant "Graduate Teaching Fellows in STEM High School Education: An Environmental Science Learning Community at the Land-Lake Ecosystem Interface". His main responsibilities are supervising and implementing improvements to the undergraduate labs. In Fall 2017, he was a lecturer for the Chemical Engineering Laboratory II. He also holds positions on the departmental Safety Committee and Undergraduate Program Committee.
Abstract
Since April 2013, there have been 41 fatalities and greater than 237 injuries reported in 21 different incidents investigated by the Chemical Safety Board [1]. Chemical process safety education is needed to reduce future incidents. To encourage colleges and universities to incorporate process safety into their curricula, ABET incorporated a general engineering student outcome which states that students should have “an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors” [2].
Incorporating the necessary ABET student outcome change in higher education is challenging without effective strategies. Henderson et al. surveyed the education literature, discussing strategies for creating change, and proposed a model for creating effective change in higher education. The proposed model contains four different strategies which can be used independently or together to create change in higher education. These strategies are (1) policy, (2) shared vision, (3) curriculum and pedagogy, and (4) reflective teachers [3].
At the 2017 ASEE Chemical Engineering Summer School, five different faculty from five universities, which includes a combination of public and private universities with both research and/or teaching focuses, identified a shared vision of incorporating chemical process safety into the chemical engineering unit operations course. In the past year, using reflective practices, they surveyed their respective curricula using the eight [ABET] Chemical Process Safety learning outcomes recommended by Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE) to determine which outcomes they are currently teaching in unit operations [4]. This study found a need for familiarizing students “with the major regulations that impact the safety of chemical plants” [5]. Following the discussion at the 2018 ASEE Annual Conference, several more faculty indicated interest in this project.
Building on the previous study, this work-in-progress paper will survey the new institutions’ curricula. Then, utilizing the change model proposed by Henderson et al. and the SAChE Chemical Process Safety Learning Outcomes, the chemical process safety curricula changes and assessment criteria in the unit operations laboratory will be described. This includes describing how current resources in chemical process safety education, such as the AICHE faculty workshops, the Concept Warehouse, and CCPS publications, can be utilized.
Carter, T. L., & Wilson, S. A., & Azarin, S., & Brennan, J., & Karlsson, A. J., & Barr, C. (2019, June), Work in Progress: Utilizing Change Strategies and Chemical Process Safety Resources to Incorporate Process Safety Education in the Unit Operations Courses in Public and Private Universities Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--33578
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