TY - GEN
T1 - ENERGY AND THE UNIVERSITY
T2 - ASME Turbo Expo 2022: Turbomachinery Technical Conference and Exposition, GT 2022
AU - Winegardner, Erica
AU - Lemay, Emma
AU - Lynch, Stephen
AU - Thole, Karen A.
AU - O'Connor, Jacqueline
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 by ASME.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Ambitious international decarbonization goals and growing demand for energy are two powerful mandates that set the agenda for the gas turbine industry for the next several decades. To meet these goals and needs, educators must focus on the development of not only technical skills, but also energy literacy. Energy literacy has three components - the cognitive (awareness of energy concepts and technologies), the affective (awareness of the interaction between energy and greater societal issues), and the behavioral (agency to make energy-related decisions) - that can be significantly enhanced by not just curricular interventions, but also non-curricular activities. This paper begins by describing the energy landscape at Tier 1 Research (R1) Universities in the United States. Over 50% of R1 universities in the US use gas turbines to help meet their campus power and heating needs, and almost 60% of these universities have public facing information about campus energy production and usage, indicating an opportunity for enhancing energy literacy amongst the student body through better energy communication. Using these peer institutions as a backdrop, we focus on efforts by the Center for Gas Turbine Research, Education, and Outreach at the Pennsylvania State University as a case study to learn how to enhance energy literacy in engineers through both curricular and non-curricular interventions. The non-curricular intervention includes an energy dashboard, displayed in the student collaboration space for the Department of Mechanical Engineering, that shows real-time statistics on power and steam production, as well as gas turbine engine data from an advanced instrumentation package in one of the power stations on campus. The curricular intervention includes use of data from this dashboard in an introductory thermodynamics course, including the use of engine data in Brayton cycle analysis. In describing these efforts, we highlight the critical role that gas turbine technology and the gas turbine industry can play in enhancing the technical education and energy literacy of the future workforce.
AB - Ambitious international decarbonization goals and growing demand for energy are two powerful mandates that set the agenda for the gas turbine industry for the next several decades. To meet these goals and needs, educators must focus on the development of not only technical skills, but also energy literacy. Energy literacy has three components - the cognitive (awareness of energy concepts and technologies), the affective (awareness of the interaction between energy and greater societal issues), and the behavioral (agency to make energy-related decisions) - that can be significantly enhanced by not just curricular interventions, but also non-curricular activities. This paper begins by describing the energy landscape at Tier 1 Research (R1) Universities in the United States. Over 50% of R1 universities in the US use gas turbines to help meet their campus power and heating needs, and almost 60% of these universities have public facing information about campus energy production and usage, indicating an opportunity for enhancing energy literacy amongst the student body through better energy communication. Using these peer institutions as a backdrop, we focus on efforts by the Center for Gas Turbine Research, Education, and Outreach at the Pennsylvania State University as a case study to learn how to enhance energy literacy in engineers through both curricular and non-curricular interventions. The non-curricular intervention includes an energy dashboard, displayed in the student collaboration space for the Department of Mechanical Engineering, that shows real-time statistics on power and steam production, as well as gas turbine engine data from an advanced instrumentation package in one of the power stations on campus. The curricular intervention includes use of data from this dashboard in an introductory thermodynamics course, including the use of engine data in Brayton cycle analysis. In describing these efforts, we highlight the critical role that gas turbine technology and the gas turbine industry can play in enhancing the technical education and energy literacy of the future workforce.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141717446&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1115/GT2022-83102
DO - 10.1115/GT2022-83102
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85141717446
T3 - Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo
BT - Education; Electric Power; Fans and Blowers
PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Y2 - 13 June 2022 through 17 June 2022
ER -