| Outcome/Accomplishment:
Educators at the Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC), an NSF-funded
Engineering Research Center (ERC), recently announced the creation of a
new Biorenewable Chemicals Graduate (BCG) Minor at CBiRC’s lead institute,
Iowa State University. The BCG allows students from a variety of
allied disciplines to understand the opportunities for developing biorenewable
chemicals.
Impact/Benefit:
Students in the minor gain explicit entrepreneurial internship experience,
a background in the general issues related to production and processing
of biorenewable resources, and exposure to the economic and environmental
realities of the chemical industry. It is a unique educational experience
that combines high-quality technical education with hands-on entrepreneurial
knowledge and skills.
Explanation/Background:
The new BCG Minor is designed to complement and enhance a broader, more
extensive educational mission of the CBiRC, including educating pre-college
teachers and students and providing research experiences for undergraduates
as well as novel graduate curricula for students in CBiRC-allied fields.
This broader educational mission reflects the outward-focusing characteristics
of a “Generation-3” ERC, of which CBiRC is in the vanguard.
The new minor consists of
a 14-credit-hour sequence: 8 hours of graduate coursework in Fundamentals
of Biorenewable Resources and Technology (3 cr), Biological and Chemical
Catalysis (3 cr), The Evolving Chemical Industry (1 cr), and a Biorenewable
Chemicals Entrepreneurial Internship (1 cr); and 6 credits of coursework
selected from a list of courses reflecting CBiRC's three technical thrust
areas: New Biocatalysts for Pathway Engineering (Thrust 1), Microbial Metabolic
Engineering (Thrust 2), and Chemical Catalyst Design (Thrust 3).
Additional training for students in the graduate minor occurs through annual
CBiRC center-wide meetings. Students present posters and learn about
each other's research findings, thereby gaining a better appreciation for
both chemical and biological catalysis routes for producing biorenewable
chemicals.
The CBiRC course materials
are designed to facilitate the development of new interdisciplinary graduate
minors, concentrations, or options in biorenewable chemicals at all the
Center’s partner institutions. |
