A Traditional Material Balances Course Sprinkled With "Non Traditional" Experiences

The traditional "first course" in most Chemical Engineering programs is the Material and Energy Balances sequence, typically taught in the sophomore year. In the introduction to their text, "Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes", Felder and Rousseau make the following observation: " A criticism sometimes leveled at the stoichiometry course is its emphasis on drill and routine solution methods, an emphasis that gives the student little idea of the wide range of problems to be encountered by the practicing engineer and the imaginative and creative abilities needed to solve some of them. Unfortunatelythe only way we have found to teach students the engineering approach to process analysis is to have them practice it, repeatedly, until they get it."