(239h) Integrating Process Safety across the Curriculum

Failure to prepare students with essential process safety knowledge and skills has led to catastrophic and financially devastating events.¹ To support college and university continuous curriculum improvement in process safety, ABET, requires evidence that students understand “the hazards associated with these processes” as part of chemical engineering program accreditation. ² However, incorporating chemical process safety outcomes across the curriculum is challenging because creating change in higher education is difficult. Barriers to changing curriculum include “a lack of time, instructional challenges, and a lack of autonomy”. ³ Leveraging drivers for change can help. These drivers include “expanding on current practices, encouraging collaboration, and common objectives for improving teaching and assessment”.³ One change model has been suggested to create change in higher education. This model includes four strategies: “Developing a Shared Vision, Enacting Policy, Disseminating Curriculum and Pedagogy, and Developing Reflective Teachers”.⁴

To create change, process safety outcomes needed to be defined. In 2010 the Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE) Committee in collaboration with faculty and industry leaders, developed eight outcomes. These eight outcomes include an understanding of past events, the hazards and impacts of chemicals and releases, as well as understanding how to assess the hazards and risks associated with a process and to design or mitigate against them.⁵ Using the proposed change model and leveraging drivers enabled the integration of chemical process safety outcomes into eight core courses across the curriculum.

1. US CSB. (2022). T2 Laboratories, Inc. Runaway Reaction. https://www.csb.gov/t2-laboratories-inc-reactive-chemical-explosion/.
2. ABET. (2022). Accreditation Policy and Procedure Manual. https://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/accreditation-....
3. Shadle,S.E., Marker,A., Earl,B., International Journal of STEM Education 2017,4,(1),8.
4. Henderson,C., Beach,A., Finkelstein,N., Journal of Research in Science Teaching 2011,48,(8), 952-984.
5. SaChE. (2022). The Safety and Chemical Engineering Education Program. https://www.aiche.org/ccps/community/technological-communities/safety-an....