Chem395:Syllabus

Syllabus: Sustainable manufacturing

SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING (Chemistry 395)
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Is it possible to maintain or improve our standard of living without depleting the world's resources and destroying our environment? Sustainable development is widely regarded as a responsible approach to economic growth- yet this is only possible if we can find new sustainable methods of manufacturing. Manufacturing and sustainability will be explained in terms of the Earth's material resources and carrying capacity and material/energy flow, as a manifestation of the basic laws of chemistry. This course looks at different approaches that industry can produce materials and goods while reducing or eliminating the environmental impact. The chemical industry will be used throughout to provide examples of how manufacturing industry needs to change, and show cases of how this has (or has not) been achieved in practice.

General

Format

Online lecture/seminar/discussion combination.

Prerequisites

One semester of college-level science.

Instructor

• Martin A. Walker, Stowell 305, SUNY Potsdam
• Telephone: +1 (315) 267-2271
• Email: walkerma@potsdam.edu
• Class wiki: http://pluto.potsdam.edu/chemwiki/index.php/Chem395:Welcome (password required)

Text

"Technology, Humans and Society: Towards a Sustainable World" by Richard C. Dorf, Academic Press, 2001. This will be greatly supplemented by readings from other sources.

Technology needs

You will need a computer with a good internet connection and a modern browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. To get the full benefit from the slide presentations, you will need Microsoft Powerpoint or its free equivalent, OpenOffice Impress (from www.openoffice.org).

Course wiki and Blackboard site

A wiki is a user-editable website, and the course wiki will be the main "classroom" for this online course. This will be where you look at lectures, participate in discussions and contribute assignments. Writing on the wiki is very simple, but we will have a training session at the start of the semester. You will be expected to check in on the wiki at least three times a week (unless this is waived by the instructor), and to participate in a weekly discussion for fifty minutes (at a time or times that work for all students). The online version of any document supersedes any offline version (PDF, Word file). You will be expected to follow the standard protocols, in particular the behavioral norms.

Blackboard is a restricted-access course management system, and the Blackboard site for CHEM 395 will be used as a repository for alternative versions (e.g., PDF or Microsoft Word) of many documents, including this syllabus. It will also contain the grade book, where your grades (marks) are only visible to you and your instructor.

Course schedule

Schedule

This is available on the wiki at Chem395:Schedule, and also as a static document in Blackboard. This includes links to weekly schedules to guide you through the course, beginning with week one. In addition, on the wiki there is a "daily tasks" page updated each day, where you will be checking in.

Course work

Content

For details on the content, please see the schedule, which lists the course units. The course approaches environmental problems, sustainability and manufacturing from a scientific perspective. No formal chemistry background is required. General chemical concepts will underpin nearly all of the course material, but details of chemical reactions will not typically be discussed.

There is a series of course units, which are a set of slide presentations on the course material, roughly one per week. These presentations take the place of lectures in a traditional college course. They should be studied carefully, because many of the assignments and other graded work will be based on this material. There is a Powerpoint version for study, and a PDF version for printing (four slides per page). These presentations contain interactive quizzes at appropriate points, to help you to assimilate the content. This material will be enhanced by readings from the course textbook ("Technology, Humans and Society: Towards a Sustainable World" by Richard C. Dorf, Academic Press, 2001) as well as from other sources. The course content for each week is given in the course schedule, with more details given on the individual week's page.

Grading

The final grade will be based upon a combination of five assignments (6% each), one paper presenting a case (10%), a term paper on a sustainable technology (15%), weekly discussions (20% total), a role-playing scenario (5%) and a final exam (20%). SUNY Potsdam uses a point system for final grades, ranging from 4.0 (A, excellent) down to 0.0 (F, fail); the minimum pass grade is 1.0, though a 2.0 grade may be needed if the course is to count as an elective for a major. Please see the SUNY Potsdam grading page for more details.

Assignments

The five problem sets and the papers will be done via the wiki, and after submission the papers will be visible to the entire class. Papers will be submitted to the wiki under the Creative Commons license and may be published more widely (though they can be deleted upon request by the student). Work may initially be done offline in word processing software such as Microsoft Word, but it should be uploaded and formatted for the wiki in order to receive a grade.

Term Paper

You will be expected to write and present on a paper of around 2000 words on one particular green product or process. The product or process should already exist and should have reached at least the prototype stage.

Role-play/Case presentation

Students will take on various roles on the environmental committee of a fictitious chemical manufacturing company. One assignment will involve two "virtual meetings" taking place during the weekly discussion timeslot where environmental problems will be reviewed and an environmental management system will be discussed. You will also need to write a paper making the case for the company to invest in something to meet its sustainability goals. This part of the course aims to bring home the real-world problems of creating a sustainable manufacturing enterprise.

Discussions

Discussions on the specified topics will be held on the wiki at least once a week. We will have one or more 50 minute time slot set aside (at a mutually acceptable time), so a group of us can all "talk" about the topic in real time. If we have a small class, we can hopefully find one single time slot; if the class is larger we may set up two more more times, but your attendance is only required at one per week. Your grade will depend on your level of contribution. See the discussions page for more details at Chem395:Discussions

Getting help

Disabilities

If you have a documented disability that may affect your ability to participate in the class, please let me know at the beginning of the course.

Finally

I am here to help! Please contact me if you are falling behind or experiencing other difficulties, and I will do what I can.

See also

• Chem395:Schedule
• Chemistry 395 Syllabus (Word 2003)
• Chemistry 395 Schedule (Word 2003)
• Chemistry 395 Syllabus (PDF)
• Chemistry 395 Schedule (PDF)