I-Corps L: Interactive Educational Tools for STEM Students to Increase the Understanding of Energy Conversion Devices

通过美国国家科学基金会创新学习团队计划（I-Corps L），该项目将开发各种方法来扩大燃料电池教学和学习的教育软件的规模和影响。燃料电池是一种非常高效的能量转换装置，可以显著提高清洁能源的利用率。交互式教育模块在佛罗里达中部大学的早期工作中被设计、开发和测试。这些模块经过优化，以教育和培训广泛的受众，包括K-12，本科生和研究生，以及工程专业人员，使他们熟悉并更好地了解燃料电池的操作原理。拟议的扩大和维持教育创新努力的目标是接受和使用I-Corps学习计划提供的支持，以加速已开发的交互式教育软件向新兴学习工具的过渡；并增加这项工作对不同教育机构和工业实体的影响。建议的努力和软件配置路径的开发将建立在先前开发的教育模块上。这些模块在各种环境中进行了测试，包括工程入门课程、本科工程热力学和高级燃料电池系统课程。在I-Corps项目中，将在高中、特许学校、社区学院、四年制本科院校以及全国各地的大学等教育实体中寻找更多的最终用户和潜在采用者。在拟议的I-Corps项目的帮助下，教育软件将接受额外的审查，并制定一条可能导致更广泛采用的途径。考虑到燃料电池在全球能源系统中已经发挥的重要作用，该项目有可能帮助美国学生充分了解这项技术所带来的机遇。

Through the NSF Innovation Corps for Learning Program (I-Corps L), this project will develop ways to increase the scale and impact of educational software for teaching and learning about fuel cells. Fuel cells are very efficient energy conversion devices which could significantly improve the use of clean energy sources. Interactive educational modules were designed, developed, and tested in earlier work at the University of Central Florida. These modules are optimized to educate and train a broad audience which includes K-12, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as engineering professionals to become familiar and better understand the principles of operation of fuel cells. The goal of the proposed scaling and sustaining of educational innovation efforts is to receive and use the support provided by I-Corps Learning program to accelerate the transition of the developed interactive educational software into emerging learning tools; and to increase the impact of this work among different educational institutions and industrial entities.The proposed efforts and development of the software disposition pathways will be built on previously developed educational modules. These modules were tested in a variety of settings including introductory engineering courses, undergraduate engineering thermodynamics and a advance fuel cell systems course. In the I-Corps program, additional end users and potential adopters will be sought among both education entities, such as high schools, charter schools, community colleges, four year undergraduate institutions, as well as universities across the country. With the help of the proposed I-Corps project the educational software will receive additional review and a path that could potentially lead to more widespread adoption will be formulated. Given the important role fuel cells are already playing in global energy systems, the project has the potential to help US students to be well-informed about the opportunities presented by this technology.