ENGGEN 140 Energy and Society - Course Outlines

Course Prescription

How will we power the modern world? An introduction to chemistry and biology and their application to solving problems in energy, its transformation and use. Treatment of associated risks and uncertainties applied to decision making in energy will develop understanding of perspective taking, the social licence to operate, and the role of professional engineering skills in the community and society.

Course Overview

This course is structured to teach the fundamental concepts that are required for analysing biological and chemical systems in an integrated and applied way. The course material is structured into two units: 1) Mass and 2) Energy balances and how these are applied to biological and chemical systems.

Why Biology and Chemistry?

An engineer requires a basic understanding of a wide area of knowledge, in order to work with a broad range of people from many backgrounds. The aim of this course is to give you, as an engineer, the basic tools that you will need to understand, analyse and solve chemical and biological problems from an engineering perspective. Pick up any newspaper and you will find articles on climate change, the energy crisis, genetic engineering, biodiversity, water quality – topics that are increasingly at the forefront of technology, engineering and policy, and that require a technical understanding in order to make informed decisions.

This course provides the fundamental skills required by a practising engineer, and introduces you to some of the specialisations you may wish to pursue during your university career and beyond. The course is taught from fundamentals to application, to show how the fundamentals can be applied to a wide variety of chemical and biological problems. A systems view will be taken where the students are asked to define a system, on multiple scales, and investigate how the system behaves. The course aims for the students to be able to apply these fundamental skills to applications that are not covered in this course i.e. how they can solve a chemical or biological problem that they are unfamiliar with, as the problems all have the same underlying fundamental mass and energy conservation principles. Thus, the skills taught are transferable to unknown future problems that the students will come across. The applications used are local and real world examples to highlight the possibilities of interdisciplinary engineering, ranging from the micro to the macro scale. By looking to chemistry and biology we can improve our design of products and processes and understand their impact on the environment.

There is a natural link between chemistry and engineering and it has long been a traditional part of engineering programmes. But chemistry also provides a link between engineering and biology. Understanding biological processes requires knowledge of chemistry and biochemistry, and implementation of engineering solutions often requires knowledge of chemical processes.

This course is taught using a coursebook with gaps that students are expected to fill in during lectures. For this reason, it is important that students attend lectures.

Announcements relevant to the course will be sent via Canvas, so it is important that students regularly check their university emails.

Students who have not taken chemistry before this course may find it useful to improve their knowledge of basic chemistry (e.g. moles) before starting the course.

Course Requirements

No pre-requisites or restrictions

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

Understand the multiscale, function and interaction of chemical and biological systems (Capability 1.1)
Apply units, dimensions, conversion factors (Capability 1.1)
Use block diagrams to formulate and interpret mass balance problems; apply degrees of freedom analysis (Capability 1.1 and 2.1)
Understand mass transfer, convection and diffusion (Capability 1.1, 2.1 and 3.2)
Apply Fick’s first law and mixed mechanism mass transfer to mass balance calculations of biological and chemical systems. (Capability 1.1, 2.1, 2.2 and 3.2)
Understand derive energy balance, convert units of energy (Capability 1.1 and 3.2)
Apply literature search techniques, write in engineering style, justify assumptions, demonstrate academic integrity (Capability 2.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2 and 6.2)

Assessments

Assessment Type	Percentage	Classification
Final Exam	60%	Individual Examination
Project	14%	Individual Coursework
Test	10%	Individual Test
Quizzes	10%	Individual Coursework
Research skills quiz	4%	Individual Coursework
Peer Review	2%	Peer Coursework
6 types	100%

Assessment Type	Learning Outcome Addressed
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Final Exam
Project
Test
Quizzes
Research skills quiz
Peer Review

For late assignment submissions, 10% of your assignment grade will be deducted for each day late up to a maximum of five days; assignments submitted more than 5 days late will not be graded (exceptions made for illness or bereavement - medical certificate is required for illness).

A 10% rule applies when calculating your final grade. Your performance in tests must be in line with your exam performance. To ensure this is the case, your combined mark is calculated and then compared against the mark calculated using only the the exam. Your combined mark cannot raise you by more than 10% above the mark calculated using only the tests. In case of illness or bereavement, aegrotat grades will be determined on the basis of your marks in the test only.

Final grades in this course will be determined using the standard University of Auckland grade boundaries. AFTER rounding your final mark to the nearest integer. Rounding is done using standard mathematical rounding rules, e.g. a mark of 89.50 would round up to 90 whereas a mark of 89.49 would round down to 89.

All mark queries must be lodged BEFORE the day of the final exam.

Workload Expectations

This course is a standard 15 point course and students are expected to spend 20 hours per week involved in each 15 point summer school course that they are enrolled in.

For this course, you can expect 6-8 hours of lectures per week, some hours of reading and thinking about the content and several hours of work on assignments and/or test preparation.

Learning Resources

This course uses a coursebook which contains gaps for students to fill in during lectures. All students will need to use an electronic version (available on Canvas) or hard-copy version of this coursebook (available from Ubiq).

Digital Resources

Course materials are made available in a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas which also includes reading lists and lecture recordings (where available).

Please remember that the recording of any class on a personal device requires the permission of the instructor.

Academic Integrity

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the internet. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against online source material using computerised detection mechanisms.

Learning Continuity

In the event of an unexpected disruption we undertake to maintain the continuity and standard of teaching and learning in all your courses throughout the year. If there are unexpected disruptions the University has contingency plans to ensure that access to your course continues and your assessment is fair, and not compromised. Some adjustments may need to be made in emergencies. You will be kept fully informed by your course co-ordinator, and if disruption occurs you should refer to the University Website for information about how to proceed.

Class Representatives

Class representatives are students tasked with representing student issues to departments, faculties, and the wider university. If you have a complaint about this course, please contact your class rep who will know how to raise it in the right channels. See your departmental noticeboard for contact details for your class reps.

Inclusive Learning

All students are asked to discuss any impairment related requirements privately, face to face and/or in written form with the course coordinator, lecturer or tutor.

Student Disability Services also provides support for students with a wide range of impairments, both visible and invisible, to succeed and excel at the University. For more information and contact details, please visit the Student Disability Services’ website at http://disability.auckland.ac.nz

Special Circumstances

If your ability to complete assessed coursework is affected by illness or other personal circumstances outside of your control, contact a member of teaching staff as soon as possible before the assessment is due.

If your personal circumstances significantly affect your performance, or preparation, for an exam or eligible written test, refer to the University’s aegrotat or compassionate consideration page: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/exams-and-final-results/during-exams/aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration.html.

This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.

Student Feedback

At the end of every semester students will be invited to give feedback on the course and teaching through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback and respond with summaries and actions.

Your feedback helps teachers to improve the course and its delivery for future students.

Class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the department and faculty staff-student consultative committees.

Student Charter and Responsibilities

The Student Charter assumes and acknowledges that students are active participants in the learning process and that they have responsibilities to the institution and the international community of scholars. The University expects that students will act at all times in a way that demonstrates respect for the rights of other students and staff so that the learning environment is both safe and productive. For further information visit Student Charter (https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/forms-policies-and-guidelines/student-policies-and-guidelines/student-charter.html).

Disclaimer

Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about the course will be available for enrolled students in Canvas.

In this course you may be asked to submit your coursework assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations for this course online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. The final decision on the completion mode for a test or examination, and remote invigilation arrangements where applicable, will be advised to students at least 10 days prior to the scheduled date of the assessment, or in the case of an examination when the examination timetable is published.

Capability 1:	Disciplinary Knowledge and Practice
Capability 2:	Critical Thinking
Capability 3:	Solution Seeking
Capability 4:	Communication and Engagement
Capability 5:	Independence and Integrity
Capability 6:	Social and Environmental Responsibilities

ENGGEN 140 : Energy and Society

Engineering

2020 Summer School (1200) (15 POINTS)