Enhancing the Teaching of Engineering Differential Equations with Scientific Notebook

Scientific Notebook is a combined word-processing and computer-algebra package operating with a Maple engine. It is powerful, user-friendly and affordable. It can be used in the classroom or in the computer laboratory to formulate a problem, construct a solution, and plot the results, in a short span of time. This saving of time enables one to concentrate more on the interpretation of the solution and to promote links to related mathematical topics. We show how Scientific Notebook can be used in the teaching of differential equations in engineering calculus classes. We illustrate two worksheets provided and report the results of a student evaluation survey.