Learning by practice: Introducing a new building energy efficiency elective course and laboratory into the Mechanical Engineering undergraduate curriculum

考虑到建筑能耗的高水平和建筑节能专业知识对提高环境和经济可持续性的重要性，这个项目在草原景观大学（PVAMU）的重点是开发和实施一个新的软件辅助的、基于项目的建筑节能和绿色建筑设计领域的选修课程。建筑能源效率实验室，将在这个项目中发展，将补充课程。该项目的成功实施将对学生、PVAMU机械工程（ME）项目、大学、当地社区和其他大学产生更广泛的影响。这些影响包括通过在本科生和研究生的研究项目中使用已开发的建筑能效实验室来提高ME项目的研究能力，并作为热科学实验室和流体力学的补充实验室，将本课程作为PVAMU能源与环境可持续发展中心能源工程辅修课程的一部分。与教育工作者、研究人员和公众分享从国家科学基金会项目和学生项目中获得的经验和发现。该项目的目标是通过参与以实践为导向的能源相关课程，提高PVAMU机械工程专业本科生的工程学习和工作技能。本项目提出的节能内容与教学方法相结合，可以为其他hbcu提供一个很好的教学范例，也可以为其他大学所采用。项目评估将用于评估实施活动、指导项目进程和评估影响。为此目的，形成性评价将处理项目按计划执行的程度，以及战略和活动按计划制定和执行的程度（实施评价）。形成性评估还将提供有关项目按计划进展程度的数据，哪些工作良好，哪些需要改进（进度评估）。总结性评价将评估目标和目的达到的程度以及是否发生了一些意想不到的结果。评价活动将在内部和外部进行，采用混合方法收集数据。将使用匹配比较设计来确定该项目对已注册和未注册的学生的影响。

Considering the high level of building energy consumption and the importance of building energy efficiency expertise to enhance environmental and economic sustainability, this project at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) is focused on developing and implementing a new software-assisted, project-based elective course in the area of building energy efficiency and green building design. A building energy efficiency lab, which will be developed in this project, will complement the course. The successful implementation of this project will have broader impacts on students, the PVAMU Mechanical Engineering (ME) program, the university, the local community, and other universities. These impacts include research capacity enhancement of the ME program by using the developed building energy efficiency lab in undergraduate and graduate research projects and as a supplementary lab for Thermal Science Lab and Fluid Mechanics, the inclusion of this course as part of the energy engineering minor curriculum in the PVAMU Center for Energy and Environmental Sustainability, sharing the gained experience and findings from this NSF project and students' projects with the community of educators, researchers, and the public. The goal of this project is to enhance engineering learning and the work-related skills of undergraduate students at PVAMU Mechanical Engineering program by engaging them in a practice-oriented energy-related course. This project with the proposed combination of energy-efficiency contents and instructional approaches can be a good instructional example for other HBCUs and can be adopted by other universities as well. Project evaluation will be used to assess implementation activities, guide project processes, and assess impact. To this end, formative evaluation will address the extent to which the project is implemented as planned and strategies and activities developed and implemented as intended (implementation evaluation). Formative evaluation will also provide data concerning the extent to which the project is progressing as planned, what is working well, and what needs improvement (progress evaluation). Summative evaluation will assess the extent to which the goals and objectives were met and whether some unintended outcomes occurred. Evaluation activities will be conducted both internally and externally, using a mixed methods approach for gathering data. A matched comparison design will be utilized to determine impact of the project on students registered vs. unregistered in the proposed course.