Description of Course Goals and Curriculum
The goal of the course is for students to be able to describe various different energy technologies (for instance, batteries, photovoltaics, and fuel cells) and to explain certain processes that are key to how those technologies work (e.g., how we can use radiation to generate light). A lot of emphasis is placed on the materials used in such energy technologies and the properties of said materials that make the technology effective (or not so effective). Environmental effects of these materials and technologies are also emphasized, particularly in the first lecture and the lecture about life cycle analysis.
Professor White focuses primarily on assessing conceptual understanding of topics gone over in lecture, although there is still some memorization (e.g., what are the important components of a fuel cell?). The midterm and final exams did not involve calculation questions (in fact, calculators were not allowed), so being able to explain your reasoning and describe processes, technologies, and materials were very important for these. Doing well on problem sets involves both understanding concepts and showing your work and reasoning. Being able to guide someone not taking the course through diagrams of the major technologies covered in the course (like photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, LEDs, batteries, fuel cells) is helpful for assessing your understanding of what you've gone over in lecture and prepares you for parts of the exams, plus gets you to apply this course to your daily life.
Topics covered in this course range from sustainable buildings to energy storage technologies to cements and natural materials. Especially important concepts covered were atomic structure and bonding, electromagnetic radiation and its effects--e.g., exciting electrons and promoting them from the valence band to the conduction band in semiconductors--and thermal energy versus heat.
Learning From Classroom Instruction
It's helpful to get to lecture slightly early or on time (leave enough time to get to the E-Quad! This year we were just east of the E-Quad in Bowen Hall) so you can get a good seat and avoid missing material or announcements, plus so that you can turn your problem sets in without point deductions. Professor White gives excellent lectures and was almost always clear and thorough in explaining concepts and processes. Feel free to raise your hand and ask questions, like asking her to go over an explanation, diagram, or process again if you didn't catch everything, because that reinforces your learning and helps your classmates, too. You can also catch her right after lecture or during office hours if you want to know more or if she's running out of time during the lecture proper.
Take notes on the explanations for processes in particular. Problem sets often asked us to explain at least one process per unit (e.g., during the lighting unit, you might be asked to explain how fluorescence lighting works), and many exam questions asked us to describe or explain what happens in a technology that makes it work (sample question: how can light help generate electricity?). Ideally for recall, as soon as possible after lecture, cover up your notes and repeat back how the process or technology works to yourself. Review the things you forgot or got wrong by looking back at your notes and the slides (Professor White posts slides on Blackboard). That tends to help impress the information in your brain.
For certain technologies, if Professor White spends a long time in lecture pointing out how it works using a diagram with many labelled parts, I suggest understanding each part of the diagram--the function of a part, what materials make it up, why those materials are used, how it fits in with the rest of the parts, etc. Even better, explain those diagrams and the technologies covered in lecture to someone not in the class. If they don't understand something, you now know where you should focus more of your attention reviewing. Also try to recreate the diagrams of the energy efficiency technologies while you're explaining them. If you understand the process and how the diagram works, then you will be able to deduce which way the current is going in a thermoelectric circuit, for instance. For further incentive, at least one diagram-related question appeared on each exam in fall 2018.
It's also helpful to make flashcards for definitions and other memorization-based parts of the course (for instance, what the definition of heat transport is and how it differs from thermal energy) covered in lectures, or to otherwise test yourself on those aspects of the course. I used Cerego, but you can also use Quizlet, Chegg, other flashcard apps or sites, or make your own physical flashcards! Occasionally flip through a stack of flashcards and quiz yourself on definitions or list-based items (such as, what are the parts of a life cycle analysis?). Starting this early on in the semester and incorporating cards from previous lectures in your flashcard sessions makes reviewing for the final a lot easier, because you won't forget nearly as many things over winter break.
I thought guest lectures (~4 over the course of the semester) were generally not as organized as the professor's. However, if you ask during review sessions, Professor White can help you get a better idea of what the important concepts and takeaways from guest lectures were. If something appears in both a guest lecture and a main lecture, or if something from a guest lecture makes it onto a problem set, it's a safe bet that it's important. For instance, in fall 2018, the concepts of power density and energy density were covered in more than one lecture and appeared on at least one problem set.
Learning For and From Assignments
Before the due date
Work on problem sets early rather than late so that, if you have questions come up, you can ask Professor White and other classmates on the Blackboard discussion forums. If collaboration is also allowed in future years, I recommend comparing your problem set reasoning and explanations with other people in the class. This is especially helpful for calculation questions, where you need to explain your reasoning to get full credit. I compared answers with two other students after all but one problem set, and it was super helpful because doing so revealed different gaps in our knowledge and understanding when we went over our explanations together. *Answer the problem sets on your own first, then get together and compare. After comparing, reword concepts or explanations you missed in your own words.* This avoids Honor Code problems, and helps you learn the material more effectively! Even better, do as much of the problem set as possible without looking back at lecture notes, then check what you have already written or worked out against your notes and the lecture slides (posted on Blackboard). It'll help your recall and give you an idea of how much and what parts of the lectures you've internalized.
To get to the discussion board section of Blackboard, go to ENE267 on Blackboard, click 'Tools' on the left, click on 'Discussion Board', then click on the forum you want to check or post in. To subscribe to a forum (you'll get emailed when someone makes a new post), click on its name, then click on the button that says 'Subscribe' near the top left of the screen, just under the forum name.
On the due date
Arrive to lecture early or on time. That's a general guideline, but it's particularly relevant when turning in problem sets. Problem sets were due at the start of lecture, and points were deducted for turning them in even ten minutes late.
After the due date
Problem sets were generally handed back in precept ~1-1.5 weeks after they were due. Email Professor White or the TA who graded your assignment if you have questions about wording, want to know more about a concept or topic brought up in the assignment, are wondering why points were taken off, etc. Compare your answers to the solutions on Blackboard (posted after the corresponding problem set deadline) and take note of discrepancies. This year, grading seemed extremely picky about wording. Problem set solutions were extremely helpful when studying for the exams.
External Resources
*Truly external resource: If you're having trouble remembering or explaining some of the details regarding concrete or cement, you can search up EPFL's Youtube video series on 'Cement Chemistry and Sustainable Cementitious Materials', which can be found here. These videos give a more in-depth explanation of what is going on than Professor White had time for in class.*
1. Blackboard is a great resource for this class. The Course Materials and the Tools --> Discussion Board tab in particular were useful.
Course Materials
Professor White kept this very organized, with an 'Admin' folder with the syllabus and due dates for all the problem sets, a folder where she posted lecture slides, a folder for homework, and a folder for precept readings. Midterm and final exam information and practice exams were also posted under Course Materials.
Discussion Board
Around the second week of class, Professor White opened a Blackboard forum where people could post questions about topics covered in lecture or about questions on the homework assignments. She later opened new forums so students could ask questions before the midterm and final (and before their respective review sessions).
To get to the discussion board section of Blackboard, go to ENE267 on Blackboard, click 'Tools' on the left, click on 'Discussion Board', then click on the forum you want to check or post in. To subscribe to a forum (you'll get emailed when someone makes a new post), click on its name, then click on the button that says 'Subscribe' near the top left of the screen, just under the forum name.
2. Office hours are also very helpful if you can make them, especially before your Life Cycle Analysis report is due (great way to ask about formatting and how much detail you need to have in certain sections) and if you have questions about a problem set or an exam. Professor White will get you to think during office hours rather than just give you the answer right away, but that will help you internalize the information more. She's also very friendly and patient! If you can't make office hours, you can email her to set up an alternative meeting time.
3. The primary textbook, Fundamentals of Materials for Energy and Environmental Sustainability by Ginley & Cahan, is the source of most of the recommended (*NOT* required--the required precept readings tended to be short news articles) readings for the course. Note that the textbook tends to go into WAY more detail than necessary, and that a couple diagrams that Professor White adapted into lecture slides had mistakes in the book (Professor White corrected them in her slides, and let us know that they were wrong--if I remember correctly, the diagram of the different types of LED lighting options and the fuel cells diagram are incorrect). However, reading/skimming the textbook after lectures helped reinforce what I had seen on the slides, what I had heard Professor White explaining, and what I had written down in my notebook. If something doesn’t click during lecture, reading through the relevant section in the recommended reading (noted on the first slide of each unit’s lecture slides) can help, and it doesn’t hurt to see the material one more time.
4. Midterm and final exam review sessions and practice exams were very much appreciated. For maximum value, start reviewing and identifying patchier spots in your knowledge a few days beforehand, so that you can post your questions on the forums or email Professor White before the review session and she can answer it during the review session. Take notes during the review sessions and highlight parts you didn't remember or had trouble explaining mentally/to a friend. Similarly to problem sets, try to answer questions as far as possible without looking at notes or slides first, and after taking the practice exams check your answers with the given solutions (generally posted several days after the practice exams are uploaded to Blackboard) to get an idea of what the grader(s) is looking for.
What Students Should Know About This Course For Purposes Of Course Selection
This course fulfilled the STN distribution and had the following required components:- Two 50-minute lectures per week
- One 50-minute precept most weeks (participation and attendance are measured and were 10% of the final grade, plus there's good discussion, so do the short readings and go to precept!)
- ~9 problem sets (~90 points each; collectively, 40% of final grade)
- Midterm exam (15% of final grade)
- Final exam (35% of final grade)
The first few problem sets didn't take much time; the greatest time sink for the course happened more around problem sets 5-7 (middle-3/4 of the way through the semester). One of the problem sets was also a life cycle analysis report with an associated short (~3 min.) presentation in precept, so that was more involved than a normal homework assignment. Ask questions about formatting and what is expected in the report, and make sure to get your topic approved sooner rather than later so you can spend more time working on it (if the timing stays the same, you'll get fall break plus I think midterms week to work on it). Try to go for clear, succinct explanations rather than long, drawn-out or confusing blocks of text. Keep in mind some aesthetics as well, since that's part of the grade and is good practice for reports in your other classes and for your independent work--generally, graphs look better than tables look better than lines of equations.
Giving your reasoning is important. (This is especially applicable for calculation questions on problem sets.) Be able to explain processes like what goes on in a battery during charge/discharge and why the different parts of a technology are important. For problem sets and exams, it also helps to know what materials are used and why. Explaining why things are useful or how a process works also involves understanding key concepts brought up in the course, like how and under what circumstances heat is transferred. As an added bonus, it's useful in everyday life to be able to explain and know how a lightbulb or a battery works. In fact, a great way to test your understanding of the lecture material is to explain how the technologies covered in ENE 267 work to someone not in the course (a friend, a family member, the person sitting next to you at lunch..).
ENE 267 is intended to be an introductory course, so there are no official prerequisites. While it probably helps to know a little bit about climate change or how energy efficiency technologies (e.g., rechargeable batteries, LEDs) work coming in, that is not required. This year students from all four major discipline areas (engineering, humanities, natural sciences, social sciences) took the course; the engineering and natural sciences students probably came in with more background knowledge. However, Professor White is a fantastic lecturer and welcomes questions during and after lecture, plus she gives many different resources (office hours, recommended textbook, discussion forums to ask more questions, etc.) to help you succeed in the course if you dedicate enough time to it. You do not have to be in STEM to enjoy or succeed in this course. Hope you enjoy the course!