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 PHYS/ENVS 3070 has
grown to ~130 students (currently registered) & is offered
every semester. About of the students are engineering and science
majors. The other 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. 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 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. 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 were
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. 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 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. 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? 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 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 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.