Abstract: The current generation of students coming into food science and engineering programs is very visually
oriented from their early experiences. To increase their interest in learning, new and visually appealing teaching materials
need to be developed. Two diverse groups of students may be identified based on their math skills. Food science students
tend to find it difficult to use mathematics as a problem-solving tool for food engineering problems. Food engineering
students, on the other hand, should be challenged to use emerging mathematical tools to develop their problem-solving
skills. Therefore, the approach of this project involved the development of a curriculum to train undergraduate food
engineers in the effective use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to solve food engineering problems by
engaging them in the creation of food engineering teaching tools. These CFD outputs were then used as innovative
teaching tools for the food science students. In this paper, this concept will be illustrated by unsteady-state heat transfer
and fluid flow problems. To evaluate the efficiency of the teaching materials developed, a student focus group was asked to
answer the same quiz following a conventional and CFD output aided teaching session. The assessment result showed an
improved understanding of the subject after the CFD teaching session. These visual aids were excellent tools to illustrate
the validity of the formulas presented in class. In addition, the new visual materials enabled a better understanding of the
relationships among different process parameters. In general, this helped the food science students better appreciate the
food engineering concepts that govern food processing operations.