Advanced Technological Education . January 2024

Welcome to the ATE Central Connection! Published the first Tuesday 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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In This Issue

Featured Project: Expanding Hands-On Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Experience for Diverse Student Populations
Featured Resources: Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
Community Connection
ATE Success Tips: Websites
Did You Know?
Select STEM Education Resources
ATE Events
News & Reminders

Featured Project

Expanding Hands-On Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Experience for Diverse Student Populations

ate.is/tquenzer

This project seeks to enhance awareness of career opportunities in Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing among a diverse group of underrepresented community college and high school students. The Bioscience Supply Chain Operations Projects for Education (BioSCOPE) model offers students project-based activities to explore biomanufacturing, acquire hands-on skills, and produce laboratory reagents and consumables meeting industry quality standards and Good Manufacturing Practice. The produced items, often components of laboratory kits, are packaged and distributed to high schools for use in biology and biotechnology classes. Facilitating connections between community colleges and high schools is crucial, fostering awareness and creating pathways for high school students to pursue bioscience courses and programs at the community college level.

This initiative provides students with practical experience, equipping them for entry-level positions in well-paying jobs with opportunities for advancement. Overcoming the fear of science, a common obstacle for many students, particularly those underserved and underrepresented, is a key aspect of this project. Many wrongly assume that a career in life sciences necessitates an advanced degree. BioSCOPE breaks down this misconception, offering hands-on experiences that introduce students to the potential for a fulfilling career in life sciences, particularly appealing to those who enjoy working with their hands. By removing this barrier, BioSCOPE not only benefits students by guiding them towards rewarding, well-paying careers but also contributes to the industry by cultivating an inclusive, diverse, and skilled workforce.

Featured Resources: Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

From National Center for Supply Chain Automation:

California's Neglected Majority: The Case for Skilled Technicians

atecentral.net/downloads/4218/Californias_Neglected_Majority.pdf

This 6-page article written by Kevin J. Fleming discusses the lack of skilled technicians in California. Fleming argues that the lack of skilled technicians is caused by the focus on pursuing 4-year degrees immediately after high school. A university degree is no longer a guarantee for success. Associate degrees and industry certifications may be a better path to success for some students. The article offers statistics on California high school graduation and college enrollment rates and possible solutions for the lack of skilled technicians.

From National Center for Supply Chain Automation:

How to Obtain Labor Market Information on Supply Chain Technology Industries and Occupations

supplychainautomation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/How-to-Obtain-Labor-Market-Information-on-Supply-Chain-Technology-Industries-and-Occupations.pdf

This 31-page white paper was created by the National Center for Supply Chain Automation to serve as a guide for educational institutions. The guide aims to help educational institutions obtain labor market information (LMI) on supply chain technology. The guide includes sections on Understanding LMI Categories, Defining Supply Chain Technology, Obtaining LMI Data Using Existing Sources and Obtaining LMI Using Employer Survey. Two appendices are included: Supply Chain Technician Employer Survey: Phone Questionnaire and Don Dillman's Guiding Principle for Mail and Internet Surveys.

From InnovATEBIO National Biotechnology Education Center:

A Toolkit to Implement Supply Chain Biomanufacturing Projects

innovatebio.org/presentation/a-toolkit-to-implement-supply-chain-biomanufacturing-projects

In this video, published by InnovATEBIO, Ying-Tsu Loh and Terri Quenzer discuss the BioSCOPE supply chain hub project and their work in developing curriculum and materials. BioSCOPE 101, a resource for implementing supply chain biomanufacturing projects, was created by this project and is described during the presentation. Industry partners, stakeholder input, a skills matrix, tools for decision making, Canvas course modules, and more are highlighted. The video recording runs 59:04 minutes in length.

Community Connection

Utilizing LinkedIn with Evalu-ATE

LinkedIn can be a valuable tool to incorporate into your outreach strategy. Most ATE community members think LinkedIn is the most professional way to share updates and resources, according to a survey by ATE Central.

ATE Central's latest Impacts blog covers the growing shift towards outreach utilizing LinkedIn. In this blog, Evalu-ATE senior marketing specialist, Samantha Hooker, shares their strategic shift from Twitter to a more professional outreach platform. Samantha covers the reasoning for a shift to LinkedIn, how to create interesting content, how to find your community, and finally, some thoughts on the future of outreach using social media.

By leveraging LinkedIn platform, your project or center can build relationships, grow your network, and achieve outreach goals. Connect with ATE Central's new LinkedIn page to keep up to date with the ATE community!

ATE Success Tips: Websites

Resources to Analyze Website Accessibility

An important part of outreach strategies is to make content accessible to as wide an audience as possible. While many social media platforms often build in accessibility features like alt-text for images, it can be more complicated to ensure websites are accessible. Fortunately, there are several applications and services that automatically inspect the accessibility of websites and website features and suggest changes to make content more accessible.

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE)

This free web accessibility evaluation tool provides a simple way to check the accessibility of a web page's content. After entering the URL of interest on the main page, WAVE will display the page marked up with embedded icons indicating potential accessibility errors, alerts, features, and other information. The left sidebar presents a summary of what WAVE detected on the entered page, and users can click the embedded icons or explore the sidebar for brief explanations of their meaning. WAVE also offers browser extensions for Chrome.

WebAIM Color Contrast Check

The WebAIM Color Contrast Checker provides an interactive tool to check a given pair of colors. The tool also allows users to interactively adjust the lightness of their provided colors, updating the computed contrast ratio automatically as changes are made.

Accessible Name and Description Indicator (ANDI)

ANDI lives in the bookmarks or favorites section of a user's browser toolbar, and when clicked, it automatically analyzes the current webpage and displays a window flagging accessibility issue and suggesting recommended actions. It also indicates what a screen reader should say for interactive elements. To install, simply drag the icon from the page linked above to the toolbar of any browser (ANDI works on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari).

Readers looking for more information can also read the AccessATE tip sheet Creating Accessible Websites.

Did You Know?

The latest data from the U.S. Education Department (ED) reveals that the majority of community college students transferring to four-year institutions do not achieve a bachelor's degree within an eight-year timeframe. Only 13% of Title IV students who initiate their education at community colleges manage to earn bachelor's degrees within eight years. There is notable variation among states, with New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and Kansas exceeding or meeting a 15% attainment rate, while Louisiana, New Mexico, Indiana, Delaware, and South Dakota fall below 8%. The ED also highlights "dyads," pairs of institutions involving a community college and a four-year institution, identifying the top baccalaureate-producing dyad in each state. This further emphasizes the potential for improvement, even within strong transfer partnerships.

Select STEM Education Resources

A few online STEM resources from outside of ATE, that you may find of interest:

TeachEngineering: Riding the Radio Waves

www.teachengineering.org/lessons/view/duk_amradio_tech_less

STEM educators looking for an engaging way to introduce students to radio's engineering aspects may be interested in Riding the Radio Waves, a lesson plan from the TeachEngineering collection. This standards-aligned lesson teaches students "how AM radios work through basic concepts about waves and magnetic fields" and includes several demonstrations "to help students better understand these concepts." In addition to the demonstrations, the lesson is designed to be taught in conjunction with a hands-on activity where students build working AM radios from kits. This curriculum, which was created with students in grades 7-9 in mind, emphasizes the concepts of waves and magnetic fields as engineering fundamentals, as well as the practical applications of those concepts. TeachEngineering is a digital library of standards-aligned K-12 STEM teaching resources whose development was funded by the National Science Foundation and is currently managed by the University of Colorado-Boulder and Oregon State University. Riding the Radio Waves and its accompanying activity was contributed by the MUSIC (Math Understanding through Science Integrated with Curriculum) Program in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University.

Contrasts in Blue: Life on the Caribbean Coral Reef and Rocky Coast of Maine

smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/contrast/cover.html

From the SmithsonianEducation.org Website comes an excellent set of learning resources based on Exploring Marine Ecosystems, a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The activities and lesson plans in Contrasts in Blue help students explore two distinctively different marine ecosystems: the Caribbean coral reef and the rocky coast of Maine. The Web site provides a detailed introduction complete with hypertext links for exploring specific concepts in more detail. The lesson plans "encourage students to consider the role of temperature, sunlight, waves, and tides in the creation of unique marine environments," and include downloadable worksheets.

Nebraska Earth Systems Education Network

nesen.unl.edu

The Nebraska Earth Science Education Network has as one of its objectives to promote and enhance earth science education. The Web site provides lesson plans on various subjects including astronomy, geology, mapping, soils, water, and weather. Each submitted lesson gives a recommended grade level and contains objectives, materials needed, procedures, and conclusions, depending on the activity. The site is a great resource that provides unique and original information from teachers for teachers.

Do you have some great STEM resources you'd like to share with ATE Central? Email us with your ideas at [email protected].

ATE Events

Upcoming Events
January 8–10	Info	CyberCorps®: Scholarship for Service (SFS) 2024 Job Fair	Washington, DC
January 10–12	Mfg	FCPN 2024 Symposium	Jensen Beach, FL
January 18	Nano	Lesker U Live – Free Webinar on Vacuum Pumps for High Vacuum Applications	Online
January 23–26	Gen	AACC Workforce Development Institute	New Orleans, LA
January 25–27	Gen	ATIA 2024 Conference	Orlando, FL
January 25	Gen	From Now to Next: The Decade-Long Journey of Generative AI in Higher Education	Online
February 1	Nano	Lesker U Live – Free Webinar on Vacuum Pressure Measurement Devices	Online
February 1–4	Info	National Cybersecurity Capabilities and Careers Symposia (3CS) Session Proposal Development Workshop	Tampa, FL
February 5–6	Gen	Asset Integrity Management of Critical Infrastructure	Kissimmee, FL
February 5	Gen	Project Management: Deep Dive into Scope and Scope Creep	Online
February 7–9	Eng	2024 ASEE Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration (CIEC)	Garden Grove, CA
February 9	Gen	Community College Thought Leaders’ Dialogue II	Online
February 20–22	Gen	Axe-con 2024	Online
February 21	Info	What’s New in Global Mapper Standard v25.1?	Online
February 28–29	Mfg	NEVC Annual Meeting	Port St. Lucie, FL
February 28	Info	What’s New in Global Mapper Pro v25.1?	Online
March 1	Mfg	Mechatronics 101 for High Schools: A workshop for Secondary and Post Secondary Educators	Clearwater, FL
March 5	Ag/Env	2024 AgTech Summit	Champaign, IL
March 6–9	Eng	International Technology and Engineering Education Association Conference	Memphis, TN
March 14–15	Info	GeoTech Center Drone Educators Conference	Saratoga, CA
March 17–20	Gen	Innovations Conference	Garden Grove, CA
March 18–21	Eng	ASME Mechanical Engineering Education Summit	Atlanta, GA
March 19–21	Eng	Robotics for Inspection & Maintenance Summit	Houston, TX
March 20	Info	Top Ten Global Mapper Pro Tips & Tricks	Online
March 26–28	Ag/Env	Conference for Advanced Reactor Deployment	Charlotte, NC

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.

News & Reminders

ATE Central Outreach Kit

The ATE Central Outreach Kit was developed as a tool to assist ATE Principal Investigators (PIs) and staff in effectively planning, monitoring, and executing outreach activities.

ATE Central has given the Outreach Kit a refresh with a new design and content, accompanied by a downloadable Template. The new kit is designed to guide you through a step-by-step process and helps you explore how to identify your primary audiences and stakeholders, determine the partners and resources that can support your efforts, and start considering aspects such as branding and messaging.

By utilizing the kit and template, you will make significant progress towards developing a comprehensive plan that enables you to achieve the objectives of your grant, effectively communicate your outcomes and impacts, and showcase the valuable work of your project or center to a diverse range of stakeholders.

The Outreach Kit can be found on ATE Central's website, under the Resources tab.

New Tool - Calendar Feed

The ATE Central Calendar Feed is an easy to customize tool that enables calendar feeds from the ATE Central Events Calendar to quickly be added to either the Outlook or the Mac Calendar app, and will then automatically display upcoming events of interest based on the keywords you include. You can use the feed to populate your personal calendar or to add lists of upcoming events to your ATE center or project website. For WordPress-based sites, free plugins like ICS Calendar will allow you to use a calendar feed to display a list of upcoming events on your WordPress site. You'll need to sign in to your ATE Central account to create a feed - and it's easy to change your selection of keywords to add or subtract areas of interest over time. We look forward to hearing from you as you utilize this new service and as always, we'd love to get your feedback or comments. Don't hesitate to reach out to the team with any questions at [email protected].

ATE Impacts 2022-2023 Book Showcases Work of ATE Community

The ATE Impacts 2022-2023 book showcases the work of the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education Community. This edition includes a foreword from United States President Joseph Biden. It features the work of 33 projects and 28 centers across the seven ATE areas, as well as applied research. By highlighting the ATE community's successful and innovative work, the book encourages broader participation in the ATE program by academic institutions, educators, and industry partners. Dissemination of the ATE Impacts book advances understanding of the importance of technician education and its role in supporting the high-tech industries that drive the United States' economy More information on the book can be found on the ATE Impacts website.

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