2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A key area of student difficulty in advanced transport phenomena courses at the undergraduate level continues to be the connecting the conceptual and physical concepts relayed within these courses to mathematical representations. Studies in engineering education have shown that not only do these conceptual gaps represent a significant problem for the instruction of these courses, but they amplify preexisting gaps, disproportionately challenging students from under-resourced backgrounds as well as students underrepresented in engineering. This can affect student confidence and "belonging" in these subjects. Design based learning is a innovative method of combating these challenges, giving students a real world, authentic design challenge on a socially or globally relevant problem. Not only does this mode of learning give students multiple different ways to access the subject (visual, hands-on, collaborative) it encourages students to view abstract equations as concrete concepts. This work will present a student-lead design challenge creating a microfluidic reactor module. Student learning was evaluated through design reports and concept inventories taken before and after the design challenge. This work will contribute to the body of design based strategies with a particular focus on conceptual understanding and broadening participation in transport phenomena classes.