(379f) Integration of Research in Chemical Engineering Education through Service Learning

During the Spring 2021 semester, Prof. Katie Russell partnered with Glass Half Full (GHF), a glass recycling start-up company in New Orleans co-founded by two Tulane students in 2020, for several service-learning projects designed to harness the technical and critical thinking skills of Tulane chemical engineering students. One team experimentally analyzed contamination levels in recycled glass under Prof. Julie Albert’s guidance, and their results inspired Albert, Russell, and GHF co-founder Franziska Trautmann (BSE Chemical Engineering, 2020) to assemble a team in response to the National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator Program call for proposals related to the networked blue economy (Track E). Now a $5.7 million research effort involving over 20 faculty researchers and a dozen community partnerships, the chemical engineering service-learning projects have grown, engaging freshmen and juniors in projects related to water management (e.g., storm drain filters, French drains and rain gardens) and public education around glass recycling and combatting coastal land loss (e.g., Tik-tok videos). This poster will present the results of these projects as well as anecdotal evidence of their positive impact on recruiting and retaining students in the chemical engineering discipline at a time when enrollment in chemical engineering departments is declining nationwide.

*Funding: NSF 2137730, 2230769