Educating our future citizens in science and engineering is vitally important to ensure future advancement. Presently, in the light of environmental sustainability, it is critical that students learn concepts relating to energy, its consumption and future demands. In this article, we harness the state of the educational technology, namely…

Sustainable energy is one of the biggest global challenges today. This paper discusses how we can promote adolescents' learning of sustainable energy with the help of an international massive open online course (MOOC). The aim of this case study is to understand: (1) What do the adolescents find relevant in the MOOC course about sustainable…

Wind energy is an exciting and clean energy option often described as the fastest-growing energy system on the planet. With some simple materials, teachers can easily demonstrate its key principles in their classroom. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

One has heard a great deal in recent years about designing self-sustaining communities, organizations that can subsist independently on what they make. Planning for this kind of community is challenging--today most people take for granted having essential services like water, sewage, communications, natural gas, and electricity delivered right to…

Starting a renewable energy technology (RET) program can be as simple as shifting the teaching and learning focus of a traditional electricity program toward energy production and energy control systems. Redirecting curriculum content and delivery to address photovoltaic solar (PV solar) technology and small wind generation systems is a natural…

Water purification promotes healthy living. While the developing world is working to provide its citizens with future access to clean water sources, the demand for that water is a pressing need today. It should be understood that drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene are interwoven and are all necessary for the overall improved standard of…

Wind is reemerging as a clean and reliable source of energy--primarily for the production of electricity. This article discusses how to create a pinwheel to explore wind power. It presents a 5E learning-cycle lesson in which students construct a simple pinwheel-type windmill to test the power generated by different designs. Students compare three-…

As the United States strives to achieve energy independence, students need to be literate about energy and environmental issues. In this article, the authors present a lesson about the nation's electricity resources that is part 1 of a free, comprehensive unit on coal and energy that is available online (http://tinyurl.com/coalenergyunit). The…

A project-based design course is developed for man-portable power generation via microfabricated fuel cell systems. Targeted audience are undergraduate chemical/process engineering students in their final year. The course covers 6 weeks, with three hours of lectures per week. Two alternative projects are developed, one focusing on selection of…

Alternative energy sources have become increasingly important as the production of domestic oil has declined and dependence on foreign oil has increased. Historically, there have been four time periods during which the United States was in fact crippled by oil shortages. These time periods include: (1) the early 1900s; (2) World War II; (3) the…

Project-based learning (PBL), a learning environment in which projects drive learning, has been successfully used in various courses in the educational programs of different disciplines. However, concerns have been raised as to the breadth of the content covered and, in particular, whether PBL can be applied to specialized subjects without…

Present engineering has to deal with increasingly complex systems. In particular, this is the case in electrical engineering. Though this is obvious in microelectronics, also in the field of power systems engineers have to design, operate and maintain highly complex systems such as power grids, energy converters and electrical drives. This is…