The polyketides are a diverse group of natural products with important applications in medicine and industry. Industry, especially the pharmaceutical industry, is under pressure to deliver "greener" chemical syntheses that are less environmentally damaging and incorporate renewable resources. There exists potential to replace current…

The representation of a large number of students born outside the United States among the ranks of doctorate recipients from U.S. universities is one of the most significant transformations in U.S. graduate education and the international market for highly-trained workers in science and engineering in the last quarter century. Students from…

Screencasts are digital recordings of the output from a computer monitor, including narration. Their use was piloted in five chemical engineering courses and the feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive. The screencasts were produced on Tablet PCs using Camtasia Studio software and were posted to the Blackboard classroom management…

This study investigated whether students who are studying calculus were able to determine the graph of the derivative of the functions related to the problems they come across in their daily lives or in applied science. A test was given to science and engineering students at a Turkish university. At the end of this study, it was determined that…

Responding to concerns that engineering is a poorly understood occupation and that young people are exposed to stereotyped images of scientists and engineers at an early age, this investigation sought to identify how science and engineering is portrayed in contemporary junior fiction (ages 8-12) and to what extent. An examination of 4,800 junior…

What's the number 1 threat to young students using computers today? According to Dan Odell, Microsoft's in-house ergonomist, when he asked parents this very question, "the things they were most concerned about were online predators and people taking advantage of their kids. Ergonomics was fairly far down the list." Unfortunately, that…

This is the first of four commentaries discussing John Dewey's short essay, "Education as engineering". The essay provides a fascinating model of how the example of engineering could guide the interaction between educational research and practice. It has much in common with Herbart's ideas on how "pedagogical tact" bridges the gap between theory…

Water is one of our most precious resources. However, for many in the United States, having fresh, safe drinking water is taken for granted, and due to this perceived lack of relevance, students may not fully appreciate the luxury of having safe running water--in the home. One approach to resolving water-quality issues in the United States may…

This volume contains selected papers submitted to the 17th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES) held in June 2019 in Pomorie, Bulgaria. The 17th BCES Conference theme is "Glocal Education in Practice: Teaching, Researching, and Citizenship." Some selected papers submitted to the…

Analyzing 36,000 strings of instructional data from fifteen faculty teaching twenty-eight courses over five semesters, the authors conducted a research study exploring differences in the pedagogical practices of pretenured and tenured faculty teaching innovative courses designed around the principles of the "How People Learn" (HPL)…

This research study focused on freshman attitudes towards engineering in a newly implemented cornerstone sequence that emphasized holistic design experiences. The students' initial attitudes and changes in these attitudes were examined with the explanatory mixed methods approach that allows a sequential examination of the target population with…

Scope and Method of Study: The purpose of this qualitative study was to conduct detailed personal interviews with aerospace industry executives/managers from both the private and military sectors from across Oklahoma to determine their perceptions of intellectual capital needs of the industry. Interviews with industry executives regarding…

"Shaping the Future", the 1996 report to the National Science Foundation (NSF), called for the research community to identify and characterize practical solutions for developing "supportive" and "excellent" learning experiences for all students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (SME). The recommendation was that we "start with…

Understanding the distinctions among heat, energy and temperature can be difficult for students at all levels of instruction, including those in engineering. Misconceptions about heat transfer have been found to persist, even after students successfully complete relevant coursework. New instructional methods are needed to address these…

Most chemical engineering undergraduate laboratories have fluid mechanics experiments in which pressure drops through pipes are measured over a range of Reynolds numbers. The standard fluid is liquid water, which is essentially incompressible. Since density is constant, pressure drop does not depend on the pressure in the pipe. In addition, flow…