Beer, Booze, and Biofuels: An Introduction to Chemical Engineering

The goal of this thesis project was to provide the layout, curriculum, and scheduling for an introductory course regarding chemical engineering for non-majors. Throughout the course of our studies in chemical engineering and engineering in general it had come to our attention that there were many myths regarding the classes and curriculum. We had heard countless times things such as “I am glad I’m not an engineering major”, “those classes seem so hard and boring”, or “It’s all math”. The purpose of this project and class was to dispel those myths and show non-majors what chemical engineering is all about. This new class covers a wide variety of chemical engineering topics that are covered during a typical 4-year curriculum, but on an introductory level. The project focuses heavily on the introductory level chemical engineering classes and briefly discusses more complex subjects learned in the later years of study. BBB is not extremely math heavy as our students will not have the same background as an average engineering student. Instead this course focuses on the overall concepts and ideas of engineering with a few basic mathematical operations. The laboratory course work focuses on principles of measurement and observation. The required write ups focus on mastery of excel and plotting graphs. The goal is to give the students a feel for what it is like to be an engineer and to gain better understanding of what exactly chemical engineers do. Students should walk out of the class with a new appreciation for the engineering creations present in everyday life

Geographical Differences in Associations between Personality and Pro-environmental Behavior across the USA

The present study (1) tested the utility of the SAPA Personality Inventory-5 (SPI-5) factors, SPI-27 facets, and SPI-135 nuances/items for predicting pro-environmental behaviors and cross-validated these models, (2) evaluated how effects of personality factors and facets on pro-environmental behaviors vary across geographic locations at the ZCTA (ZIP Code Tabulation Area) level using multilevel modeling, and (3) assessed how geographically varying slopes related to average levels of personality factors, facets, and pro-environmental behaviors within ZCTA