2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper presents a qualitative review of student reflections on the legacy of Thomas Midgley Jr., completed as part of a systems engineering course in Spring 2025 . Students read a New York Times article about his inventions, viewed a video and attended a discussion about Amitav Gosh's "The Great Derangement", which focuses on the role of technology, history, culture in climate vulnerability. Midgley’s development of tetraethyl lead for gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) for refrigeration serves as a case study in unintended consequences of technological innovation. Each of these major innovations has very different lessons, the dangers of lead were known and knowable, while those of CFCs could not have been reasonably anticipated. The pressures to solve the problems of smooth acceleration and reliable refrigeration were very real and 'reasonable'. The proposed solutions met all of the criteria that were set and considered important at the time. Students were asked to also write an end of semester reflection on what activities in the class strengthened what professional skills, choosing one activity to focus on. The findings suggest that reflective writing encourages students to recognize and learn to articulate the uncertainties around the long-term impacts of inventions and the need for approaches that use the feedback and complexity of systems thinking. This work underscores the pedagogical value of integrating historical and ethical reflection into engineering education to foster anticipatory and responsible design thinking.