Planning Grant – Sustainable Energy Resource Center
ATEEC’s Sustainable Energy Planning Grant is a project that is being designed by a group of stakeholders in energy education, collaborating to develop a proposal for a sustainable energy technologies resource center.
The project will provide centralized access to sustainable energy technology education and provide a vehicle for sharing and disseminating that information. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the Advanced Technology Environmental Education Center (ATEEC) a two-year grant (NSF Award No. DUE-0501145) to plan the development of a resource center for sustainable energy technology education.
Summary of Project Goals & Objectives
This two-year NSF planning grant allows ATEEC to garner valuable data from energy stakeholders (e.g., educators, students, technicians, business/industry) to perform a gap analysis that will provide a picture of what is available and what is needed for sustainable energy (SE) technology education. The analysis will form a basis for ATEEC and our partners to develop a plan that will best meet the needs of both students and industry to supply the field of sustainable energy with informed, qualified, and trained technicians.
In the President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative, the field of energy is identified as a high growth occupational area for the U.S. Since energy has also been identified as a key occupational category in ATEEC’s national “Defining Environmental Technology” forums, we will build on our experience as an environmental technology center to facilitate an effort to provide centralized resources relevant to the energy technology workforce. The energy resource center will provide dissemination of sustainable energy curriculum, instructional materials, professional development, and program improvement. This will include labor market information on the need for energy technicians, what they do, what jobs are available, what programs and training are available, what programs and training are needed, best practices in education and training, etc.
To help direct this effort, ATEEC has formed a Planning Team made up of members of stakeholder organizations who recognize the need to plan for energy resource sustainability and who have committed their time and/or expertise to help develop an effective proposal for implementing an energy resource center. These members were chosen from a variety of professional sectors in the energy field, including business/industry, education, national research labs, government, and non-government organizations. The varied composition of the team promotes inclusiveness and collaboration in order to provide a centralized source for the best available energy technology training for the U.S. workforce.
For more information, contact ATEEC by phone at 563.441.4097 or toll-free at 866.419.6761, or by e-mail at hkballou@eicc.edu.