Reimagining Energy: Exploring Inclusive Practices for Teaching Energy Concepts to Undergraduate Engineering Majors

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A collection of teaching practices that has been successful in promoting K-12 student engagement is "culturally sustaining pedagogies" (CSPs). CSPs seek to create an inclusive educational experience that benefits all students, including traditionally underserved students. The potential of CSPs to improve learning has not yet been explored in undergraduate engineering. This project will apply a CSP strategy to design and teach a new sophomore-level energy course that will be required for undergraduate engineering majors at the University of San Diego. Energy is a foundational concept across engineering disciplines, but it is typically introduced to students in thermodynamics courses, that do not usually provide a context that engages women or under-represented minorities in engineering. By integrating energy practices from non-Western cultures, the course may help all students develop a broader perspective of energy issues and solutions. The research project will examine how the integration of CSPs affects engineering students. Specifically, energy examples outside of those traditionally used in thermodynamics will be identified, a course developed that integrates these non-traditional examples using CSPs will be designed, and a mixed methods research will be used to investigate how CSPs impact student learning, mindsets, and attitudes. Teaching materials will be freely available so that other faculty may use CSPs to engage their students. Consistent with NSF's mission to a diverse the STEM workforce, this project aims to promote inclusion within engineering and thus to support broader participation and increased diversity in STEM fields.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.