2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Process safety education is a key aspect of a chemical engineer’s training that focuses on identifying hazards, managing risks, and preventing accidents. The practice of laboratory and process safety in engineering courses offers multiple educational benefits and opportunities to help the professional development of students. By the practice of safety, students gain valuable analytical, managerial, and leadership skills that will be key in their post-graduation careers and that will help facilitate their transition to the workforce.
We have previously reported on the utilization of problem-based learning (PBL) and project-based learning (PjBL) tools in our undergraduate chemical engineering laboratories to promote self-directed learning and contribute to the formation of skills required by the modern engineering work environment. In this study, we expand on the use of our laboratories, class projects, and PjBL to enhance the awareness and perception of safety in chemical engineering students. This has been accomplished by the creation of a safety sequence, the incorporation of an independent class project that integrates safety practices, and a focus on safety collaborations with our industry partners. We describe how we have emphasized industry and alumni collaborations to enhance process safety education. By these efforts, we have prioritized the effective use of guest lectures and the creation of project safety meetings to foment a culture of safety in our students (i.e., one-on-one discussions with industry professionals to discuss laboratory safety, process safety, and process scale-up).
This manuscript provides an overview of the safety training implementation in our undergraduate laboratory sequence. We outline how the laboratory courses have been structured to gradually introduce students to the practice of laboratory safety and process safety. We also detail the positive impacts of this approach by presenting survey data on student perception of the overall laboratory safety experience, detailing the benefits of the one-on-one meetings with industry professionals, and describing the enhanced appreciation and awareness of safety by our students as a consequence of these efforts.