ADAPTING the PROJECT METHOD to UNDERGRADUATE INSTRUCTION in CHEMICAL ENGINEERING C. P.BAKER
AND
W. C. WHITE
Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
R
ECENT years have found colleges and universities more receptive than formerly to new theories and technics of teaching. Progressive ideas and experiments in the elementary and secondary schools have gradually seeped into the field of higher education where they have been modified to meet the needs of institutions of various types. The timehonored lecture method-facetiously described as "the process by which information is transferred from the notebook of the profesor to the notebook of the student without passing through the head of either9'-is being increasingly challenged by newer instructional processes that provide greater opportunity for initiative and purposeful activity on the part of the student. Among these technics is the so-called project method which has already demonstrated its usefulness in the elementary and secondary fields, and which has more recently been the basis of some educational experimentation among the colleges and universities. This article
describes an adaptation of the project technic to a course in chemical plant design given in the senior year of a five-year cooperative program leading to the S.B. degree in chemical engineering. Students enrolled in the course, in addition to the customary academic preparation, also bring with them some understanding of actual industrial requirements based upon their cooperative employment in New England manufacturing plants. Thus the group has both breadth of preparation and a certain maturity of outlook. The course in chemical plant design is allotted eight clock hours a week throughout both semesters, one hour in class, three hours in the laboratory, and four hours of library work and preparation. Its aim is to teach the student how to attack and carry through to completion a problem involving the design, construction, and operation of a plant for manufacturing some chemical product. Admittedly, this is a large and complicated assignment for an undergraduate to undertake, but ex-
perience over a ten-year period indicates rather definitely that the educational outcome is distinctly worth while. For purposes of instruction the class is divided into squads of three students each. Every squad organizes itself as a firm of consulting chemical engineers whose responsibility it is to prepare a complete report for a group of financiers as to the feasibility of some chemical engineering project. The nature of these projects is determined by the squads themselves after consideration in class of various timely economic needs. Some suggestions are made by the instructor; others are contributed by the students on the basis of their coiiperative experience. For example, a student whose cooperative job had been in the tobacco industry in Connecticut noticed that tobacco stems accumulated rapidly and were a waste product. He urged his squad to undertake the design of a plant to retrieve nicotine and potash from tobacco stems, a project of more than academic interest. Another, a t work in the generating plant of a large public utility, observed that the soot which was washed out of smoke from the power plant was merely collected and thrown away. He and his squad are this year trying to find a way to reclaim this waste material and compress it into electrodes or into some slate-like huilding material. This project will undoubtedly involve problems in the handling of materials, filtration, neutralization, drying, pulverization, separation, the use of binders, and the compression of mass under various temperatures.
Some projects are concerned with new products; others with the economical production of highly competitive commodities such as soap powders, facial creams, bleach solutions, and molded resinous products. Either type of project is sound educationally so long as it (1) interests the student, (2) offers him a sufficient number of perplexing problems with which to wrestle, (3) falls within the scope of laboratory facili-
ties, and (4) gives reasonable promise of being economically feasible. Having selected their projects the squads proceed to survey the literature bearing upon their particular problems. One student seeks to discover the processes already available to manufacture the product, or, if the product is a new one, the processes used in the manufacture of similar products. A second member of the squad studies the present economic situation in the in-
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dustry concerned, the average capitalization of its units, current trends in the business, etc.; while the third student focuses his attention on quality specifications and markets of the raw materials and finished products with which the project is to deal. Each week in the class hour the students meet to pool their information, discuss problems that have arisen, and make suggestions to each other. The instructor is available as a counselor but avoids lecturing except on occasional controversial issues in which his guidance may be helpful. Early in the course experimentation in the lahoratory begins, a t f i s t on a test-tube and beaker basis to determine the possibilities of different reactions and later on a semiplant scale. The laboratory is substantially equipped with a large variety of apparatus for experimentation in the unit processes of chemical engineering. When apparatus not already in the laboratory is needed the students are encouraged to build small working models themselves in order that they may encounter some of the,difficulties that arise in the design of chemical plant equipment and learn how to overcome them. After trying out various processes experimentally each squad proceeds to select equipment for the plant it is designing. In this connection a sizable file of manufacturer's bulletins containing specifications of various machines and cost data is maintained by the instructor for class reference. m e n information needed on a project is not found in this library, the students write directly to the manufacturer. Such data are filed for the use of future classes.
After the equipment has been selected, the machines are located and flow sheets are prepared showing the routing of the materials through the plant. Frequently students find it helpful to make visits of inspection to various plants in the vicinity in order to get first-hand information about some aspect of their project. In this respect manufacturers have been most cooperative, often giving more freely than requested of their time and facilities.
with description of each piece, and flow sheets, the cost of equipment ready to operate, yearly labor costs, including administrative salaries, an estimated operating statement for one year, and general summary with recommendations. It may be argued that such a report is beyond the capacity of any group of undergraduates to prepare in adequate fashion in the course of a single year. How can they possibly get a sufficient grasp of the many and varied factors involved in such an undertaking, correlate them all, and weave their findings into a completely reliable report? As a matter of fact, most of the reports worked out by students in the course are surprisingly detailed. There is no question but that the students take pride in turning in the best piece of work of which they are capable. But even if the job isn't one hundred per cent. perfect the student has had a stimulating educational experience. He has learned a great many fads incidentally, even though he has undoubtedly overlooked other facts of equal importance. But the important consideration is that he has matched his abilities against a real live project in which the procedure was not all mapped out for him in advance. Before he could begin work he had to decide what his problems were, how they should be attacked, and in what order. It is this stimulus to the student's initiative, this ap. VIEWIN THE LABORATORY SHOWING SOMEOP THE EQUIP- peal to his natural desire to direct a responsible piece of MENT AVAILABLE FOR SEMIPLANT S C A L E OPERAT~ON work, and the awakening in him of the realization that he must chart his own course that contribute most t a During the latter part of the course the weekly hour his educational development. in class is given over to special reports by individual Writing on the learner and his attitude, G . C. Myers students on topics of general interest to all squads. records the following passage indicative of a serious Factors such as plant location, patents and copyrights, lack in much college teaching:' marketing, safety engineering, transportation, etc., are "I remember that while in coUege I was able there to pass rs typical of those presented in outline form and then spectably and do the experiments with acceptable technic, hut discussed by the entire group. Students acquire more I often was embarrassed if some classmate asked me how to prouseful information and enter into the discussions with ceed in this experiment or that, unless I had my notes to help me It is easy to do the average laboratory course with excellence greater zest on this plan than they formerly did when without having mastered what appears to have been mastered the instructor gave a series of lectures on the same is- If, an the other hand, every experiment I performed I had felt a! sues. a real problem, or as a part of a problem I was soon to be conThe final report on each project is written jointly by fronted with, or of one I had met without having recognized or, ii recognized, had failed to solve till then. I would have masterel the members of each squad, responsibility for specific such experiments for life." sections being assigned to an individual by arrangement Against the first-mentioned kind of learning on the with the instructor. In this way a measure of the individual achievement of each student is obtained. part of our students we need continually to guard Further check-up is secured by means of a specially de- The technic outlined in this paper aims a t substituting signed notebook in which each student records his class for stereotyped instruction an approach based upon z notes, results of library research, observations on visits large measure of student participation and calculatet to industrial plants, and laboratory data. The note- to develop habits and points of view that will be per. book is provided with carbon sheets so that two copies manently useful. Unfortunately, there is no objective of all entries are made, one for the student and one for measure of the success of this course in accomplishing its the instructor. Thus the course involves both the purposes. The only criteria available are the corn ability to cooperate with fellow workers and the ability ments of students and the observations of instructors to do technical research. The h a 1 report submitted as to the relative worth of this method compared wit1 by each squad includes a statement as to the division the lecture-laboratory plan formerly followed. I: of responsibilities among the group, a review of the these criteria are significant the project method i: su~erior. literature bearing on the project, an account of experi- markedlv < . mental work and the conclusions drawn therefrom, a MYERS. G. C., "The learner and his attitude," Benjamin H discussion of plant location, the layout of equipment Sanborn and Company, Chicago, pp. 18&90.
