Enhancing student learning through a real-world project in a renewable energy courses course

Abstract

At the University of California at Santa Cruz, a quarter long course on renewable energy sources was complemented with a realworld team project. The course was designed for engineering and nonengineering students and did not require any advanced mathematics or physics backgrounds. The course was open to freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior undergraduate students. The course consisted of fifteen biweekly lectures, eight weekly laboratory sections, a midterm, and a final exam. The lecture material consisted of an introduction to renewable energy sources, energy harvesting, energy conversion, system efficiency, and energy storage solutions. The lectures consisted of instructor presentations, discussions, and inclass problem solving. In 2012, for the first time, a realworld project was introduced to a class of 50 students. In groups of five, students were asked to deliver project proposals and presentations on making the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf operate on 100% renewable energy technologies. The students were given the actual data for electricity and gas consumption for the whole wharf for the year subdivided by month. The students were given seven weeks to complete their work and present it to the class. The group with the highest scored proposal and presentation received a chance to display their work at the newly built Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center in Santa Cruz, CA. Each group's proposal was graded by a civil engineer based on the level of investigation they presented on harvesting local renewable energy sources, assumptions, limitations, recommended technologies, strategies, regulation, economics, and recommended timeline. Each group's final presentation was video recorded and graded by a faculty member from the Sustainability Engineering and Ecological Design Program. This paper presents the results of our findings and student feedback from a short questionnaire conducted at the end of the course. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013.