The goal of this ATE Regional Center has been to address the demand for renewable energy technicians in southern and central California as a multi-County consortium. The four year grant allowed the Center to complete objectives in five areas: 1) the development and refinement of modular in-class, on-line, and hybrid renewable energy curricula integrated into degree pathways concentrating on the areas of wind and solar photovoltaic and thermal technologies and energy efficiency and management tied to industry skills standards and certifications; 2) development and implementation of a technical teacher professional development program in renewable energy which allowed community college, high school teachers, and industry professionals recruited to be teachers to acquire the technical knowledge and certifications and pedagogical skills to teach renewable energy in their classrooms; 3) development and implementation of a 2+2+2 pathway through partnership with high schools and universities to allow students interested in renewable energy careers to have a defined career ladder with multiple exit points integrated with industry certifications and college certificate and degree attainment; 4) conducting continuous assessment and evaluation with embedded targeted research of curricular and professional development strategies to ensure that student, faculty, and industry goals were attained; and, 5) dissemination of both the products and the partnership process to maximize the impact both regionally and nationally. Supplemental funding from NSF allowed the Center to include faculty development learning exchanges aimed at increasing global literacy.

 The priority in the first three years of the four-year grant was curriculum development. CREATE schools developed and adapted curricula to meet renewable energy job and economic conditions in California. These hiring trends led CREATE program development away from stand alone renewable energy degrees to engineering, construction, or industrial technology degrees with specialized renewable energy modules and certificates. The embedding of renewable energy into traditional or integrated degrees gave students the capacity to use fundamental skills in multiple career pathways, depending on the job market. Some of the examples of these in the CREATE consortium have been: the increased students completing new state approved Construction Technology degree and certificates (with energy options in solar photovoltaics, weatherization, and energy auditing); the new Energy Auditing option embedded in a HVAC program (which drew as many former graduates as new students); the industrial technology and welding degree options for the wind industry; and the Energy Systems Technology certificate option, under engineering technology at a fourth community college. Additionally, the CREATE faculty continued to develop modules and stand alone courses that have been disseminated and used not only at all the CREATE colleges, but also at colleges across the U.S.. Over 4500 students were enrolled by year three in these renewable energy programs across seven CREATE California community colleges and over 100 new for credit degrees and certificates were completed by the end of the first three years.

 CREATE has also supported innovation in renewable energy at the high school level to increase students interested in and capable of renewable energy curricula and transfer to community college programs. A new California statewide renewable energy course was approved in 2013-2014 and a fully integrated renewable energy themed high school 9 to 12 curricula was developed and tested at CREATE’s lead high school partner. CREATE continued to promote model renewable energy outreach including the Girls STEM camp and the Hispanic language ATE TV series featuring CREATE’s lead high school. ATETV has also featured CREATE high school students in multiple videos. Another ongoing success involving high schools is the Kid Wind Teacher training and student competitions that was started at the beginning of this grant and which has been adopted by multiple school districts CREATE serves. Over the course of the grant, Kid Wind student teams trained by CREATE trained teachers have won both national high school and middle school competitions featured at AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) and other national science meetings.

 Faculty development was a priority in all four years of CREATE and in the supplemental funding.  CREATE hosted meetings of CREATE California and faculty from more than ten other states to bring new certification, curriculum information, and hands-on skills to renewable energy faculty. Examples of these include: incorporating wind, solar, and nuclear energy contextualized mathematics exercises using MatLab; Solar Monitoring using SCADA; Energy systems Technologies; PV Technical Sales; Energy Auditing; and on-line electronics tutorials.

The CREATE Learning Exchanges serve as model program for providing STEM faculty with rich international professional development experience. A paper titled “International Approaches to Renewable Energy Education – A Faculty Professional Development Case Study with Recommended Practices for STEM Educators” gives more details on the results of this study and is attached under the products section of this report. The paper was submitted to the June 2016 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference and was awarded first place best paper in the Energy Division.

Last Modified: 09/28/2016
Modified by: Kathleen A Alfano