ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION ·
SEPTEMBER 2009
Welcome to the ATE Central Connection! Published the first Monday of each month, the ATE Central Connection is meant to disseminate information to and about ATE centers and projects, providing you with up-to-date ATE news, events, reminders, as well as highlighting new centers, projects, and resources. In addition, we will also highlight an educational topic with complementary resources found within ATE Central to help illustrate how ATE resources can be used in the classroom.
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This program, from Laramie County Community College in Wyoming, in wind energy technology aims to "teach and train the workers who will maintain the wind turbines cropping up around the state." Created by NSF's Advanced Technological Education Program, this program seeks to create a workforce to harness the mixed blessing of the state's abundant potential wind energy. On this site, visitors will find out more about how the program started, the coursework required to complete the various degree programs, the benefits of this career choice, as well as additional web resources.
Here is a small sample of the valuable resources in ATE Central that focus on Energy:
From MATEC NetWorks:
This is an extensive site if you are looking for student activities and classroom projects in the area of renewable energy. It includes plans, tools, and information to do renewable energy and conservation projects. The section on design information and tools for building renewable energy projects includes some sophisticated simulations. Educational materials are given on a variety of topics such as electrical analysis including sizing of PV arrays, wire sizing, and electric motors.
From eERL:
This site from the EPA provides a useful Energy Pollution Calculator which will help students and other interested persons calculate the greenhouse gases and other pollutants created from the energy they consume. The caluculator determines users' power grid region based on ZIP code and electric utility, compares the fuel mix and air emissions rates of the electricity in users' region to the national average, and determines the air emissions impacts of electricity use in users' home or business. The calculator is a handy tool and very easy to use.
From the National Center for Manufacturing Education (NCME):
No single engineering discipline has integrated renewable and sustainable energy topics into their core curriculum. Environmental engineering programs may benefit from including sustainable energy in their curriculum. Many students in a freshman-level introductory Environmental Engineering (EVEN) course viewed EVEN as a potential major to study renewable energy, but many have since indicated that they plan to switch into other majors. Twelve of the 46 students in the class indicated that energy was their primary specialty choice (second only to 14 students stating an interest in water). Student interest in energy related topics was also strongly apparent among the applicants to a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program in EVEN, with 42 of 84 applicants stating an interest in working on research related to energy topics. These energy projects were the most popular among all of the 15 different research topics advertised. This paper describes the existing energy-related courses at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It also describes ways to incorporate sustainable energy into existing courses. Environmental engineering needs to determine what its niche will be in relation to sustainable energy topics, and train students in this important area.
For more ATE resources about Energy please visit: http://atecentral.net/s=energy
If you are part of an ATE project or center and would like to learn more about becoming involved in ATE Central, please start by filling out the ATE Central Survey (http://atecentral.net/survey) to provide us with additional information about your project or center and how ATE Central can best serve your needs.
In addition to completing the survey, you may also want to download the ATE Central Handbook at http://atecentral.net/handbook. Here you will find information about ATE Central and how your project or center may take part and benefit from ATE Central's portal and services.
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ATE Central Connection is published by Internet Scout via support from the National Science Foundation under grant number 0435310. |  |