(521d) An Engaging Course on Ethics, Professionalism, and Social Responsibility

Ethics and professional skills are critical to the safe and equitable practice of chemical engineering. Students, however, may view these topics as secondary to technical skills commonly taught in undergraduate curricula. In our department, we require a 1-credit professional practice course that has been historically used to expose students to contemporary issues and assess required ABET outcomes related to ethical reasoning. This course was typically maligned by students, who reported feeling disengaged and viewed attendance as an obligation rather than a learning opportunity.

To better promote student engagement with issues related to ethics and professionalism, we completely rebuilt the course so that now students regularly report strong interest in the content, citing that they view the course as highly applicable and even “fun”. Utilizing case studies, game-based learning, and online environmental and socioeconomic data maps, we currently cover topics related to the intersection of chemical engineering with ethics, human psychology, sociology, and social responsibility. Course topics are framed around our obligations as chemical engineers to ethical decision-making, process safety, sustainability, and environmental justice.

In this presentation, we will share our course details and including lesson topics, assignments, and strategies for creating engaging assignments while minimizing the grading burden on faculty. This should be of particular interest for departments seeking effective methods for teaching and assessing topics related to ABET SO4, as well as broadening student perspectives on issues related to the environment, sustainability, and social equity.