The Advanced Technology Environmental and Energy Center, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Partnership for Environmental Technology Education are partnering to build the nation's capacity for educating technicians to work in the energy industry. The Sustainable Energy Education and Training (SEET) project is (1) increasing community college and high school technology instructors' technical knowledge of sustainable energy by hosting annual 10-day professional development workshops about advances in energy technology, technician training requirements, renewable energy, and energy efficiency and conservation for 75 instructors at DOE sites around the country, (2) promoting ongoing learning and teaching of sustainable energy by creating a resource-rich SEET website and a network of educators, and (3) promoting ongoing peer learning and teaching by having SEET participants conduct annual energy-related webinars for educators nationwide and having participants conduct professional development events in their local communities. An external evaluator is measuring the impact of project activities on participating instructors and their students.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY EDUCATION AND TRAINING (SEET) TECHNOLOGY WORKSHOPS Each summer from 2007–2012, the Advanced Technology Environmental and Energy Center (ATEEC) has held the professional development Sustainable Energy Education and Training (SEET) Technology Workshops. The project has evolved into a model professional development workshop for technology transfer to educators, having served 116 instructors from 107 institutions in 35 states. ATEEC, serving as lead partner for this project, coordinated the activities of all the partners from the National Renewal Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Colorado Energy Research Institute at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), the Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE), and various other businesses, industry, and educational institutions which donated their expertise to the project. The primary goal of the SEET project has been to build the capacity of renewable energy and energy efficiency technicians to meet the challenges of the 21st century workplace through professional development for educators. Building on the successful framework of initial SEET Technology Workshops held at (NREL) in Colorado in 2007 through 2009, the SEET partners expanded the host institutions to include (CSM) in 2010 through 2012. The ten-day intensive annual workshops provided technology instructors in upper level high school and community colleges with energy curricula, instruction, hands-on activities, and tours by researchers, educators, practitioners from local business and industry, and peer instructors. Content experts (both research and practicing), past SEET participants, education experts, and ATEEC instructional designers developed, shared, and demonstrated knowledge with the technology instructors about research advances in energy, respective requirements for technicians, and implications for a sustainable energy future. Participants were eligible for graduate-level teacher recertification credits. In addition to gaining invaluable insights into the latest research and curriculum on sustainable energy, this professional development workshop produced very specific outcomes from the workshop participants. As part of the workshops’ required final projects, instructors teamed up to produce 28 instructional products, including 5 national webinars, and incorporated them into their classroom curricula. The SEET grant provided for a small stipend for instructors to purchase equipment and materials to enhance classroom learning, such as solar assessment instrumentation and software, renewable energy textbooks and reference books, wind turbine building and experimentation kits, and much more. The participating 116 SEET instructors have been connected and supported by ATEEC, both prior to and following the workshops, by an active online network and resources including a SEET website, Moodle online discussion site, and listserv. As a direct result of the SEET Technology Workshop, ATEEC has been able to add 74 instructional materials and presentations to our existing no-fee resource download section, including the 28 instructor-generated products from the workshops. Sustainable energy knowledge has been further extended to technology instructors and the general public across the country through 154 professional development dissemination events coordinated by workshop participants in their home communities and beyond. These peer learning activities ranged from an energy conference in Russia to "Brown Bag" college department presentations. The increased knowledge and expertise of these exemplary energy technology instructors will transfer to the classroom in the form of passing on the latest research technology, newly developed classroom instructional materials, and model curricula for program creation and revision in the rapidly changing field of energy.
