Project Based Learning for Sustainability Curriculum
Wayne Community College (WCC) is partnering with the South Carolina Advanced Technological Education (SC ATE) National Resource Center and Bristol Community College (BCC) to create Project-based Learning (PBL) Scenarios for a new sustainability technology program. This project addresses the educational needs of two-year community college students, underrepresented secondary students, and high school and community college faculty. The project provides secondary and post-secondary faculty with professional development activities and gives them the opportunity to develop, test, and implement PBL scenarios. The project is based upon WCC's previous success, new curriculum, expanded partnerships, increased student interest, and local industry support. Grant objectives are that 80% of the PBL cohort is retained and successfully completes the sustainability technology program. The intellectual merit of the project is that students are learning workplace readiness by using real work scenarios. Topics are broadly relevant to sustainable technology; career assessment, professional ethics, critical thinking, problem solving, and tools for engineering computations. The broader impact of the project is that this curriculum is the first of its kind in North Carolina. Project scenarios are incorporated into WCC and BCC's curriculum as well as the SC ATE Technology Gateway. Deliverables are also included within the nationally recognized and broadly disseminated SC ATE curriculum, the North Carolina Community College System and the North Carolina Learning Object Repository.
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