(54g) Instruction of Process Safety Engineering through Project Based Learning (PBL)

To “hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public and protect the environment in performance of their professional duties” is the first mandate in the Code of Ethics of chemical engineers. We have found the Process Safety Engineering course to be a perfect setting to instruct our students on this tenet, particularly when implementing Project Based Learning (PBL) and using multimedia generated by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, in addition to traditional textbook material (Crowl and Louvar, 4^th Edition). This methodology has been used with small classes (up to 8 students), and sometimes with students from other engineering fields (e.g.; mechanical and electrical engineering) and developed over two years. Examples of semester-long academic projects that fully engage the students and incorporate principles of hazard identification, industrial hygiene, risk assessment and safety design will be provided. We have found that introduction of complex design problems outside senior design or capstone courses can be initially overwhelming to students, but after providing project management tools (like task breakdown and strategic planning), the students readily engage with the topic, learn while working on the project and perform well on other course assignments and exams. Finally, we discuss how the tragic nature of obliquity of industrial and chemical accidents, presents an opportunity for the continuous improvement of a Process Safety Engineering class.