The Community Colleges of Spokane are initiating a professional development program for K-12 and community college faculty where participants develop problem-based learning communities to provide the pipeline to technical careers that have become part of the green economy. Teams of faculty and industry partners will develop real-world, interdisciplinary, industry-based sustainability problems that address recognized skills gaps in the current science and technology workforce. Interdisciplinary teams of teachers will complete online sustainability and systems thinking modules prior to integrating these concepts into problem-based learning communities. A summer workshop introducing problem-based learning and integrative interdisciplinary courses, industry partnerships and site visits, and a web-based support community will provide faculty with the resources to integrate sustainability into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) technical curricula. Instructional approaches will improve student performance and increase completion rates, particularly for underrepresented minorities, while fostering student interest in regional STEM technical careers. This project will provide a model for training green collar workers in regions that lack a well-defined green jobs subsector, yet are seeing growth in their green economy. Furthermore, the systems thinking approaches used in sustainability can be applied to many other problems in the workforce. Academic conferences and publications, combined with an established online presence via the Pacific Northwest Center for Excellence for Clean Energy (PNCECE), will help to disseminate these findings and to provide resources for training technicians for today's green economy.
