This paper presents the results of a survey of university students’ knowledge and perception of hydrogen technology by interviewing 93 Finnish energy engineering students before and after a learning assignment that deals with hydrogen technology. The results suggest that both the students’ knowledge and perception on hydrogen technology improve between the pre-assignment and the post-assignment surveys. The largest changes take place in their knowledge on hydrogen safety and their willingness to acquire a home hydrogen system. Correlations between the students’ level of knowledge in various topics and their opinions strengthened and multiplied during the assignment. Some unexpected connections between knowledge and opinions occurred. The study argues that system-level approaches should be integrated in hydrogen energy education instead of just teaching chemical reactions or hydrogen technologies. Both radical and conventional problem settings that challenge the students to both think in a creative manner and to keep the realism should be cultivated. © ۲۰۱۸ Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

The role of hydrogen as one of the key energy carriers in the future has been acknowledged worldwide [1,2]. Universities serve as training centers and a ‘knowledge link’ that facilitate the integration of hydrogen technology in energy and transport systems and facilitate the transition from the present energy supply system to a new one [3]. It is estimated that 150e200,000 staff members with higher education will be needed by 2020. Here, the required number of technicians will be 50,000, and the number of sales personnel will be 30e40,000. The significance of journalists in the hydrogen transition process is recognized [3], whereas engineers are strongly involved in strategic decision making [4]. Furthermore, a significant number of personnel will be required for authorization procedures and emergency operations. Fundamentally, educated persons strongly affect the transition by communicating their knowledge and attitude. Therefore, understanding the challenges and identifying the opportunities for improving teaching and learning is necessary within the higher education of renewable and sustainable energy engineering in multi- and interdisciplinary contexts [5,6]. To integrate hydrogen in various levels of education, several projects and initiatives have been taken both in Europe and worldwide [3,7e9]. Outside specific projects and initiatives, hydrogen education has been given in short courses or training for technical staff [7], summer schools [10], and postgraduate programmes, or as a part of courses related to chemistry, physics or energy engineering [3]. Hydrogen safety, identified as one of the key instruments in lifting barriers for the transition to hydrogen economy, has been a key theme in several studies related to hydrogen education [11e14]. There are also some published approaches on how the hydrogenrelated topics should be implemented in the classroom [15e17].