Use Of News Stories As Case Studies For Teaching Engineering Analysis

In the first course, the students are introduced to various topics including career options in various engineering fields, communication skills, ethics, intellectual property, problem solving, critical thinking and time management. Team projects (paper design and design & build) are a major part of the course. In the second course of the introductory sequence, chemical engineering students are exposed to chemical process design from an overall standpoint. Techniques of process synthesis and analysis are used to develop critical thinking skills for comparative analysis of potential alternatives. In addition to teaching elementary principles of various chemical engineering fundamentals, situations dealing with the importance of safety, ethics, economics and environmental issues are frequently incorporated in the design process. Current news stories provide a valuable resource as case studies for developing analytical skills in these areas.