Lansing Community College and its academic and industry partners propose to create an integrated grades 9-16 academic-career pathways model to give students the technical and workforce skills needed to become leaders in Michigan's growing green building industry. The initiative provides a real life laboratory for students to learn and be ready to enter building science-energy management careers upon graduation. Through linked education-career pathways and the creation of a capstone experience laboratory, this initiative advances knowledge of critical technical and workplace skills for students and faculty. The project will take a system approach towards building science by integrating building science-energy management topics with STEM disciplines. It leverages several resources, including already-developed curricula, standing industry advisory committees, and existing problem- and case-based student projects as the basis for the formal education-career model proposed by the project. The broader impacts of this project include the creation of partnerships among the secondary and post-secondary schools and the building science-energy management industry that can serve as a national model, and the development and implementation of a pathway framework replicable in the other part of the country. Recruitment of minorities as well as the involvement of the National Association of Women in Construction and Hard Hatted Women on the project is expected to broaden participation of underrepresented groups in STEM fields.
