Advanced Technological Education ·

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.

We want the ATE Central Connection to be a valuable tool; please e-mail [email protected] with any suggestions about how to make the ATE Central Connection more useful for you or to suggest any information you would like to see in an upcoming issue.

In This Issue

Nuclear Energy

Featured Resources in Nuclear Energy

From the Regional Center for Nuclear Energy Education and Training (RCNET):

From the Energy Technician Education Project (ETEP):

Behind the Scenes: Coal vs. Nuclear Power

PowerPoint Presentation

Lesson Plan PDF

This lesson, developed by Rebecca B. Holloway of Park Forest Middle School, connects the bridge between 'Science as Inquiry' and 'Transformation of Energy' and provides a strong link through which students can make real world connections and succeed on standardized assessments. Created using Louisiana as an example, students will create a line graph that displays the cost comparison between oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy from the time they were born until present. Using the created graph, students will then predict which element is the most dynamically economic resource. The lesson, intended for students in sixth grade (including those enrolled in special education and English as a second language programs), takes 90 minutes to complete and assumes that students have prior ability to construct a line graph with all parts correctly labeled.

From Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC):

Energy Tutorial

http://www.nfcrc.uci.edu/3/tutorials/EnergyTutorial/

The National Fuel Cell Research Center (NFCRC) provides this energy tutorial, which is divided into thematic links including Fossil Fuels, Nuclear, and Fuel Cell energy among others. Each topic has some explanatory text often accompanied with images and data. The Nuclear link will introduce students to concepts such as “chain reaction,” “heat generated,” “pressurized water reactors (PWR),” “boiling water reactors (BWR),” and “radioactive materials.” There is also a short quiz at the end of the tutorial.

Community Connection

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ATE Video Resources

Video resources are a great way to connect students, parents, and educators with careers in advanced technology. Over the years, many members of the ATE community have created and contributed to helpful video resources designed for a range of audiences - from students to parents to industry partners and more. Check out some of the various video resources currently available that highlight the work of community colleges and ATE programs nationwide:

  • ATETV aims to show how ATE is relevant to the modern workplace by helping ATE projects and centers attract students as well as industry partners. Its current series is comprised of 250 video segments, and each video can be a ready-made recruitment tool. In fact, ATETV already has an audience of over 400,000 web viewers, more than 100 cable access stations in 42 states air their videos, and over 300 colleges and organizations have requested or downloaded ATETV’s custom clips on a panoply of ATE related content.
  • The Advanced Technological Education: Student Voices, Student Leaders Video Series is produced by AACC in partnership with ATETV. There are nine videos in the series, all designed to raise awareness of community ollege students in STEM education and related career fields. Available on YouTube, the series features a diverse group of students and takes "a day in the life" approach to telling their stories. Viewers can learn what students face when balancing home, school, and work in their journeys to completing their education and becoming future STEM leaders.
  • The ATE Student Success Story Videos, created via a collaboration between WGBH and ATE Central, highlight the struggles and triumphs of a diverse set of students in ATE project and center settings. With support and guidance from PIs, staff, and industry partners, their lives and careers have been changed for the better. Each video documents a unique success story, but all of them have a common theme: technician training has the power to change lives. The videos are a great way to promote the work of ATE projects and centers and can be used freely in educational settings to help bring attention to the importance and impact of workforce development and community college programs in general and the ATE program in particular.
  • The SMART Center’s Make the SMART Choice Career Videos provides educators, faculty, administrators, and others with a great toolkit to encourage students to pursue a maritime and transportation industry career. The most recent video, released in January, features three registered apprentices in the maritime and transportation industry. About three minutes in length, this video clip highlights the different paths each technician has taken to enter the industry and pursue their careers. There are six other videos in the series.

The resources highlighted in this brief overview provide only a glimpse of the many ways that video and audio aids can boost your project or center’s efforts. Many other wonderful and helpful resources have already been prepared or are in the works throughout the ATE community. Make sure to check out the ATE Central resource portal for more helpful items and if you have a new video resource you would like to share, please let us know at [email protected]. We would love to promote your work!

Email

ATE Success Tips: Outreach

Email Groups

In today’s world, email has become one of the best and most ubiquitous platforms for communicating with others. Considering your ATE project or center’s work, email is extremely valuable for learning about grant progress, planning and sharing outreach strategies, and reaching new audiences. If you’re looking for a new way to organize email and communication within your project or center, creating thematic email groups may be a great solution. For example, you can create specific lists for outreach or for those interested in professional development work. By having multiple email lists that target specific subgroups of your audience, you can assure that the content is tailored, focused, and valuable to particular members’ needs. If your institution doesn’t have specific electronic mailing list software or a group targeted to share out this information, consider creating your own mailing lists using your email provider of choice, such as Google Groups or Yahoo! Groups.

Did You Know?

According to Community College Online, a report released by New America’s Education Policy Program, community college students are more likely than any other students to blend online courses with face-to-face courses. Moreover, though few community college students take all of their courses online, recent studies of community colleges in Washington and Virginia show that nearly half of their students take at least one online course at some point in their first four or five years of enrollment.

ATE Events

Upcoming Events
Gen Shedding Light On Lasers and Infrared Technnologies Fort Pierce, FL
– Gen Innovations Boston, MA
– Gen The League for Innovation in the Community College Innovations Conference 2015 Boston, MA
Gen Understanding and Recruiting Your Audience Webinar Online
Nano Microcantilever Model Workshop - Part II Albuquerque, New Mexico
– Mfg United States Fab Lab Network Symposium 2015 Sturtevant, WI
– Bio/Chem Genomic Approaches in BioSciences Workshop San Francisco, CA
– Gen Preparing students for rewarding careers San Francisco, CA
Gen Project Access in West Palm Beach West Palm Beach, FL
– Gen Strengthening Ties for Collective Impact: Campus Sustainability in the Northeast Region Amherst, MA
Gen Project Access Workshop at St. Petersburg College Clearwater, FL
Nano Modeling a Micro Pressure Sensor Workshop Albuquerque, New Mexico
Gen Writing in the Disciplines Workshop in Tallahassee, FL Tallahassee, FL
Gen Building Partnerships Webinar Online
Eng SAE 2015 World Congress Detroit, MI
– Gen ATE Workshops for Physics Faculty: Modeling Tools for Introductory Physics (MTIP) Appleton, WI
Nano Manufacturing Technicians’ Skills and Careers Albuquerque, New Mexico
Eng 2015 CAAT Conference Warren, MI
– Mfg Welding Course for Educators Marysville, CA

For more events, please visit the ATE Central Events page or, if you have any upcoming events that you would like posted on ATE Central or in the ATE Central Connection, please submit them online.

To add a continuously-updated list of ATE and STEM education events to your website, use the ATE Event Widget.

News & Reminders

Consider participating in the Bioscience Industrial Fellowship Project (BIFP) this June

The Bioscience Industrial Fellowship Project (BIFP) will de-mystify the bioscience industry by developing and implementing an innovative professional development model that utilizes multi-institutional partnerships to enable high-impact instructors to further understand industry principles and prepare them to guide their students toward careers in today’s bioscience workforce. The National Science Foundation is funding this project through the Advanced Technological Education Program DUE Grant # 1304010. The National Center for the Biotechnology Workforce at Forsyth Tech is implementing this project in which ten community college instructors from across the nation will be selected as Fellows for a month and gain a panoramic view of the bioscience industry. Fellows participate in boot camps at 3 community colleges with hands-on lab experiences and shadow workers in various departments at a dozen different industrial/university hosting facilities. An online application and a short video with more information about this opportunity are available. Contact Mica Welsh at (336)757-3381, [email protected] or Russ Read at (336)734-7651, [email protected] for more information.

Community College Week Releases Rankings of the Fastest-Growing Community Colleges

A new report from Community College Week lists the fastest growing community colleges in the country in four enrollment categories. The complete rankings are available here.

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If so, please make sure we've found that site and added it to the ATE Social Media Directory. Having your social media presence linked through the directory will help ensure that interested parties can find you online. In addition, if you currently publish a newsletter, please let us know, as we will be adding links to newsletters to the information available on ATE Central.

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Can CWIS software help support your project goals?

CWIS is open source software, created with NSF funding, that can help your project or center showcase resources online. It's free and very easy to use. The latest version (CWIS 3.1.1) was released on and is available for download on the Scout site. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions or would like a quick tour of its features!

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