A Project for Awareness of Environmental Issues for Non-Traditional Mechanical Engineering Students

A thermodynamics project for a small class of Ford Motor Company's students, working towards a BS degree in mechanical engineering, is described. It consisted of identifying one of the negative impacts of energy conversions on the environment, describing it, its cause, pollutants and its effect on the environment. The students picked acid rain, greenhouse effect and smog formation. The assignment put one of the topics of thermodynamics in perspective and related it directly to what the students are familiar with in their workplace making a real-life connection. The project also partially fulfilled one of the targeted outcomes for accreditation: awareness of environmental issues. The benefits of the project were assessed by analyzing their reports and by using a survey. Both methods showed that the students learned a great deal about the topic they had to write about, and that they would take the environmental effects as a factor when making engineering decisions