AN ACTIVE LEARNING APPROACH TO TEACHING WATER DESALINATION

Seawater desalination is a major source of drinking water in many parts of the world, and it has recently seen a lot of attention as a technology and as an important field of research. Desalination is a multi-disciplinary engineering science that encompasses elements of water chemistry, material science, transport phenomena, thermodynamics, engineering design, and corrosion. Water desalination is an important course in most chemical and mechanical engineering curricula, where the design and analysis of different water desalination processes are examined. The current teaching methods, however, rely heavily on classical lecture-presentation of the course materials, without any direct involvement of the students. A simple approach that utilizes Excel in designing and analyzing desalination processes has been developed. Active learning is the central part of this course development, where students are heavily involved in class activities rather than being passive receptors of materials. The students can directly assess the effect of input variables on the design parameters, allowing them to carry out "What If" or parameter sensitivity analysis. The teaching strategy and students’ assessment of this approach will be presented.