(370a) In Honor of the 2019 Education Division Award Winner for Innovation in Chemical Engineering Education.

Most of us believe that learning should be fun, and studies indicate that humor in the classroom can improve student engagement and satisfaction. However, humor can become a distraction in technical knowledge domains and worsen educational outcomes. Using a cognitive load theory framework, we have explored how a relatable proxy example can improve educational outcomes in technical areas such as science and engineering. If the example is humorous it can also increase student engagement, but the juxtaposition of technical analysis and relatable examples often provides the incongruity that produces humor with no effort. Humor in the form of humorous improvisation, was also utilized as the divergent thinking component in technical innovation exercises. We utilize humorous improvisation as a simulation in idea space to discover innovative ideas. This is analogous to using stochastic simulations to explore design and variable space in science and engineering.