During this two year project, two community colleges (John A. Logan College (JALC) and Rend Lake College (RLC) and Southern Illinois University (SIU) are engaging in activities designed to promote technology and improve technological education in the southern part of the State of Illinois. The focus of these activities is the composite manufacturing industry that is both new and economically important to the region. Rend Lake College is playing a leading role in this project by introducing High School students and teachers to state of the art composite manufacturing processes used in the boat building industry. This is done in a modern facility recently developed using major industrial support and a staff with extensive industrial experience. Participants in these courses have a hands-on experience with these processes. Teachers receive kits and instructions to be used in their classes the following year. JALC has a major role in promoting careers in Technology in secondary schools using modem, interactive, audio, video and computer communication facilities. JALC is offering summer camps for students and summer courses for teachers in Computer Aided Drafting, Robotics, and Electronics. These topics are directly relevant to the overall theme of the project since most products are designed on computers, manufacturing processes are highly automated, and sensors and computer data acquisition systems are used extensively to monitor manufacturing processes. High school teachers are developing lesson plans to incorporate what they learn into their own teaching the following year. They are able to borrow computers and robots for three-week periods for class demonstrations. SIU is taking the lead in promoting this project and technological education from High School, through two-year programs at community colleges, four-year programs and Master's degree programs at the university level. This is being accomplished through several means, including presentations using a distance learning facil ity that provides two-way audio and video interactive communication with virtually every High School in the Southern part of the state. SIU is offering summer camps for High School students, short courses for High School teachers and a course for SIU students. The three institutions are working together in promoting technological education in the region and are offering complementary courses and summer camps making the best use of their facilities and the expertise of their staff. This project is affecting a large number of students and teachers directly through the presentations, the summer camps, and the summer courses. In following years, other students will be indirectly affected as teachers will incorporate new materials in their courses and will share their knowledge about career and educational opportunities in Technology.
