Energy and the Environment:

1. Energy and the Environment: Teaching Energy Basics and Renewable Technologies to University of Colorado Undergraduates James L. Nagle, Steven J. Pollock and Stephen R. Wagner Physics Department, University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Physics Department (co-listed with the Environmental Studies Program) has been teaching a course on Energy and the Environment (PHYS/ENVS 3070) since the "first" energy crisis in the 1970's. A text developed from the course by Robert Ristinen and Jack Kraushaar has become a standard for such courses in American universities. We discuss the evolution of the course over the years, including some recent reforms emphasizing and supporting active student engagement, and present some ideas for further improving and assessing the way the subject is taught to a diverse and growing cross section of university undergraduates. PHYS/ENVS 3070 has grown to ~130 students (currently registered) & is offered every semester. About ⅓ of the students are engineering and science majors. Unlike many undergraduate Physics courses which present concepts, theories & experiments from decades or centuries ago, PHYS/ENVS 3070 is a mix of energy basics, current events and ongoing controversies, often within a few minutes of each other. The other ⅔ are architecture, journalism, environmental studies, etc majors. The course meets 3 times a week for 15 weeks, for 50 minutes of lecture & discussion. The text, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., was developed along with the course by the two (now emeritus) Physics Department faculty who originated it, Robert Ristinen & Jack Kraushaar. Now in its second edition, it is a standard text for courses like this at universities around the country. Homework is assigned using the CAPA on-line system developed at Michigan State University. In addition to allowing multiple tries to answer a question before it is counted wrong (to allow students to actively learn from the homework), it also frees the course TAs from routine grading so they can spend time working with students in the Physics Department Help Room. In addition to getting help from TAs, students meeting peers & forming study groups improves their course experience & learning Photo: Randy Montoya/Sterling Energy Systems Photo: Mike Thomason Moving PHYS/ENVS 3070 to the larger Duane lecture/demo rooms has allowed us to increase the use of demonstrations in the lectures. However, most of the demos available were developed for basic physics courses, so we’re actively engaged in developing new demonstrations of the proper scale for the large rooms. Above left is a solar dish/Sterling engine system at Sandia Labs that set a solar-to-grid conversion efficiency record (31%) in 2008. Right is a demo of the principle with a stage lamp, spherical mirror and Sterling engine that the students had earlier seen powered by an alcohol lamp. The course makes heavy use of the iClicker system & Concept Quizzes (Clicker Questions) to keep the students involved in the lectures. Concept Quizzes also allow the lecturer to see what concepts have not been taught effectively or have been forgotten, and alter the lecture to remedy this while the material is still fresh. The culmination of the course is the subject of climate change. By then, the students should have a good enough foundation in the relevant physics (black-body radiation, adiabatic lapse rate, …), processing scientific information, and critical thinking to formulate & defend their own conclusions. The PHYS/ENVS 3070 students are the energy leaders and informed citizens of tomorrow. After reading, discussing, and most importantly, calculating, what do they think about important topics? All the above plus a standard (but constantly evolving) set of PowerPoint slides for lectures & some in-class activities (“tutorials”) are available for the individual lecturer to use or not as they see fit. Unlike the instructors, many of who lived through the Cuban Missile crisis, “duck-and-cover,” and “The Day After,” almost all PHYS/ENVS 3070 students were born post-Chernobyl