2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

It is important to incorporate environmental, economic, and social considerations when we design control system. While fossil energy will be used up in the future, converting solar energy to electric energy provides one potential solution to sustain the growth of the world population. The batteries play an essential role in electric energy storage, especially for electric vehicles (e.g., Tesla EV). The switch from traditional energy resources to renewable energy brings challenges and opportunities to chemical engineers who generally work in the oil & gas industry. In order to make students aware of these challenges and opportunities, a project was developed in the course of Chemical Process Control, which is the last required course taken by senior students in Chemical and Biological Engineering, to develop the mindset of Engineering for One Planet (EOP) in students. In this project, lectures were given to students on the nine core values of EOP, including Systems Thinking, Environmental Literacy, Social Responsibility, Responsible Business and Economy, Environmental Impact Measurement, Materials Choice, Design Mindsets, Critical Thinking, and Communication and Teamwork. After students were given the training materials on EOP Framework after the midterm, including handouts, videos and one lecture on the core concepts of EOP, three students formed a team to provide a two-page proposal on the scope of the project and the alignment of the proposed project with the nine core values of EOP. On the basis of the instructor’s feedback, each team started to work on the project and submitted a report summarizing the obtained results by the end of the semester. An anonymous survey was given in class to collect students’ feedback through multiple-choice questions on “how the EOP project helps students in learning process control” and “the effectiveness of the project in building the EOP mindset for students”. Open-ended questions “the advantage and drawbacks of the EOP project” were also included in the survey. The surveys from 49 students will be analyzed, and the analysis results and students’ EOP projects will be shared with the ASEE community in this work.