(196d) Even More Steal-Able: Thermodynamics Concept Laboratories & Projects

Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics is a one-semester four-credit course with weekly laboratories. The course addresses energy and entropy, modeling of fluid behavior, and reaction thermodynamics. Halfway through Spring 2020, the course abruptly moved online in emergency remote instruction. In the second Spring semester of pandemic-constrained teaching, some students were attending class remotely, either by choice or due to quarantine, and some attended in person. Because this was known in advance, it became possible to take a a more considered approach to remote and hybrid laboratories and in-class problem solving activities. This talk will demonstrate several labs and in-class problems that were redesigned to work similarly for both in-person and remote students.

In the course’s conceptual experiments, every activity starts with a prediction and ends with a reflection. Preserving these from the hands-on version, we were able to use simulations for some experiments and videos for others. We will discuss the relative effectiveness of these modes, as demonstrated by pre-/post- semester concept inventory as well as student responses to laboratory questions. While the learning gains for hands-on experiments appear larger, it is likely the results are also influenced by the same factors led to the student participating remotely that day. Now that every lab and class meeting has simulations or videos that set-up the experiment or problem of the day, I invite anyone to steal any or all of these course elements.

Attached figure: Screen shots of experimental videos addressing (clockwise from upper left): baking soda and vinegar reaction; temperature change when evacuating a tank; distinction of reaction kinetics and equilibrium; lower-flammability-limit and ethanol demonstrated with bananas Foster.