(57d) Engaging Students through History: How Thermodynamics’ Past Motivations Transcends through Time

Thermodynamics is a fundamental core engineering course and considered by students one of the most challenging courses in the engineering curriculum. Moreover, studies suggest that engineering classes do little to foster conceptual understanding and very often students memorize the steps to solve a problem instead of understanding the reason and the concepts involved in the solution. Anecdotally, many students come to thermodynamics classes with fear and a preconceived mindset that they will not be able to follow what will be taught. Additionally, many university professors agree that it is challenging to engage students in disciplines that are excessively mathematical and disconnected from human interaction. While many teaching practices have been reported to engage students in thermodynamics courses and connect it with real world examples, there are only a few instances that explore the connection of thermodynamics with its origins. Through the lens of the founding fathers of thermodynamics concepts, it is hypothesized that by incorporating historical elements in the thermodynamics course (such as the motivation and the thinking process for the scientists to come up with the equations students are learning), students will be able to make connections between the material and its relationship and importance within society, politics, and economics. This may serve as motivation to change students’ mindset towards thermodynamics as well as promote enduring understanding that will facilitate retention of the concepts presented in class.

The history of thermodynamics was included for the first time in the chemical engineering thermodynamics course AT THE INSTITUTION in 2023. The instructor prepared a block flow chart containing the motivation, results and conclusions for each equation, process, and/or concepts mentioned in the course. One example includes Carl Lindes’ motivation to develop the liquefaction process on a large scale after being requested by Guinness to supply liquid carbon dioxide to improve their beers’ foam head. A voluntary survey was conducted at the end of the course to evaluate students’ perceptions of the thermodynamics course. Results indicate that students found the thermodynamics course interesting (4.1 +/- 0.8 on a 5.0 scale) and that the history of thermodynamics presented in class increased their interest in thermodynamics (3.5 +/- 1.1 on a 5.0 scale).

With the positive feedback received by students, a new interactive website about the history of thermodynamics was developed and the effect of the website on students’ retention of thermodynamics concepts is being currently investigated. Chemical engineering students who attended thermodynamics course AT THE INSTITUTION in 2024 were assigned as the control group and were not provided with any historical background in class as well as an interactive timeline as a resource. A mandatory activity was conducted at the last day of instruction where students were asked to answer conceptual questions about thermodynamics. Students received credit (2% of final grade) for completion regardless of if their answers were correct. The new website containing the historical background as well as the interactive timeline will be included in the next offering of thermodynamics course in the chemical engineering department AT THE INSTITUTION (Winter 2025) by the same instructor. Students will be asked to answer the same conceptual questions and the results will be compared to the control group, along with their overall average grade.

Therefore, the objective of this work in progress is to present the interactive website containing the history of thermodynamics for those interested in including it in their thermodynamics course and present the partial results. It is expected that the outcome of this study will provide information on the possibility of using a novel and creative teaching practice that may (i) help students understand the concepts studied in a complex engineering course, (ii) improve the attractiveness and motivation of students to study a complex subject such as thermodynamics through focusing on the historical elements of “when, who, what, and where” and combining with the engineering aspects to solve the “why, how, and made-from what”, and (iii) promote social awareness and the connection between the topics studied in thermodynamics with past and current economics, politics, and intellectual environment, which are crucial factors that determine how current world problems can be solved by engineers.