Collaborative online international learning project focuses on bioprocess technologies
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Although the pandemic has reduced international mobility, other strategies have been maximized, such as international online collaboration. The Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) projects have brought professors and students from different parts of the world together for international programs offered online.
School of Technology professors Dr. Allan Valcareggi Morcelli and Dr. Gustavo Roth are now offering, in partnership with Catholic University of America (CUA), USA, an elective course Bioprocess Technologies (98400-02), through COIL. In the course, students from the School will participate in a project on bioprocesses together with students from the U.S. institution.
The COIL program will consist of six sessions to discuss global challenges. The idea is that students, together, can find solutions to beat these challenges. In this semester, world hunger will be the theme of the course, focusing on food technologies, biotechnology and other innovations in the area of chemical engineering.
For Roth, the course allows students to view a global problem from different perspectives, and have contact with different cultures. “We hope that our University consolidates internationalization in house and that the approach to global challenges from the perspective of Bioprocesses in a collaborative way, will provide professional possibilities for students in the future. The perspective of CUA’s Biomedical Engineering students together with the knowledge of the students in our elective course will be key to the learning process that will employ active methodologies to deal with the topic proposed in COIL.
In addition, Morcelli views COIL as an opportunity to strengthen ties with an internationally recognized institution and provide students with an international experiences while in their home countries.
PUCRS students who have taken the course before, but are interested in joining forces with CUA, can enroll in the extension course Engineering the Future: Biotechnology Solutions to World Challenges (196307) on this link by May 16, 2021.
