Title :
K-12 Research experiences for teachers and other career promotion resources
Author :
Flueck, Alexander J.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Illinois Inst. of Technol., Chicago, IL, USA
Abstract :
Based on industry surveys (2007-2009) conducted by the Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD), approximately 50% of all electric power utility engineers will be eligible for retirement in the next five years. Meanwhile, the number of full-time undergraduate students enrolled in electrical and computer engineering has declined by 27% over the last several years (2002-2009). Will we have enough power and energy engineers in the future to maintain reliability of the grid? Will we have enough power and energy engineers to improve energy efficiency, design new smart grid technologies, integrate renewable energy sources and sieze the opportunity to electrify transportation? The key to the workforce problem lies in K-12 education, where too few students are exposed to the exciting world of engineering. This paper presents proven K-12 engineering resources that were developed by a multidisciplinary team of faculty at Illinois Institute of Technology during a five-year Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Site project funded by the National Science Foundation. The RET Site at IIT has provided training in various engineering fields, including power engineering, to more than 100 K-12 teachers in the Chicago Public Schools and surrounding districts.
Keywords :
educational institutions; energy conservation; personnel; power engineering education; power utilisation; reliability; smart power grids; teacher training; ΠT; CEWD; Chicago public schools; K-12 research experience; RET site; career promotion resources; computer engineering; electric power utility engineers; electrical engineering; electrify transportation; energy efficiency; full-time undergraduate students; power engineering; renewable energy sources; smart power grid reliability; teachers; Computers; Educational institutions; Mathematical model; Power systems; Robots; Videos; K-12 education; K-12 outreach; K-12 pipeline; Research Experiences for Teachers; workforce development;
Conference_Titel :
Power and Energy Society General Meeting, 2011 IEEE
Conference_Location :
San Diego, CA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-1000-1
Electronic_ISBN :
1944-9925
DOI :
10.1109/PES.2011.6039849