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At least 163 records · Page 9

Developing Smart Building Technology Modules to Enhance Workforce Preparedness: A Case for AI-Driven Academic and Professional Education

Smart building technologies are resources that improve building energy efficiency and resilience, reduce carbon emissions, and provide load flexibility to the grid. However, in both academic curricula and building professionals’ continuing education, there is a lack of systematic instruction on methods to integrate multiple energy systems including distributed energy resources (DER), smart building technologies, AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools and key concepts, components, and controls, including “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices. In today’s dynamic workforce, this major gap in smart building technology education prevents stakeholders from being able to attract talent with an understanding and preparation to adopt smart building technologies in building design and operations. A federally funded project included a partnership between Slipstream and Texas A&M University (TAMU) to develop a semester-long smart building curriculum for engineering college students with the ability to adapt the contents for workforce development of professionals in building services. The final product consists of 16 training videos adapted for building professionals and the public. The educational content and training materials cover the benefits of building energy systems, the latest sensor technologies and IoT devices, all with a focus on smart building technologies. The key drivers are on topics related to smart building controls (i.e., energy management information systems), smart building control platforms, cybersecurity, grid-interactive-efficient buildings (GEBs), smart building control methods, and occupant-centric control. Although not explicitly included the technologies nod to the need for AI driven technologies to prepare engineers and industry professionals to be future ready. This paper describes the project approach, provides outlines of the training materials, and identifies lessons learned in creating the content for this course. The authors suggest ways to scale the instruction of smart building concepts to empower the workforce to accelerate the adoption of smart building technologies and AI-based teaching and learning in higher education and building sector.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Educational Consortium for Energy-related Data Science & Computation in Building Engineering Programs

The project spearheaded by Pennsylvania State University aims to address the growing need for integrating energy-focused computation and data science into building engineering education. As the demand for energy-efficient building designs and operations increases, the educational sector must adapt to equip future engineers with the necessary skills. This initiative responds to this need by developing a consortium that unites multiple institutions to enhance curriculum development, dataset curation, and resource sharing, thereby ensuring students are well-prepared for the evolving energy sector. The primary goal of the project is to establish a consortium that will develop and disseminate educational materials and training programs focused on energy-related data science and computation. Key accomplishments include the creation of a beta website for resource sharing, the development of training programs and standalone modules, and the curation of datasets accessible to the public. This effort will culminate in a curriculum that incorporates advanced modeling technologies and data science skills into building engineering programs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Building Cybersecurity Educational Materials for Students: The Windfarm Capture-The-Flag Exercise

Securing and protecting critical infrastructure in an increasingly digital world is vital but it is all too often an afterthought. It is especially important that students become aware of internet safety and security at an early age. However, the availability of interactive and educational cybersecurity material targeted toward students is minimal in the United States. Here we show an example of interactive cyber security educational material that an educator can use in their classroom to encourage students to think about the interaction between real-world physical objects, cyber security, and information security. By putting together a “capture-the-flag” exercise, students can see in real time how hackers and cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities and gain access information. The students try to “capture” the “flag” (i.e., information) in the wind farm by looking for oddities in the code or by taking advantage of weaknesses in everyday protocols. Students can also see how cybersecurity interacts with the power grid through the wind farm project scenario and how a hacker could cause serious problems to a critical infrastructure sector. Our goal for the project is getting students interested in cybersecurity and help them develop an awareness of how important having robust security systems is. We also hope that this project demonstrates the importance of introducing these concepts early and inspires others to create similar projects geared toward students.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Greater Toledo Community Foundation Sustainable Communities Educational Initiative (Final Technical Report)

The Greater Toledo Community Foundation’s (GTCF) Sustainable Communities Educational Initiative leveraged the two recently constructed Overland Solar Arrays to launch a diverse collection of educational activities designed to promote the intersection between workforce development, renewable energy and community activism to showcase emerging avenues for greater prosperity in communities that have experienced historic disinvestment. In addition to educational programming focused on employment in the clean energy and advanced manufacturing fields, the project also activated storytelling approaches to explain sustainable energy’s role in philanthropy, grantmaking and resident-led neighborhood enhancements.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

NASA Science4Girls and Their Families: Connecting Local Libraries with NASA Scientists and Education Programs to Engage Girls in STEM

NASA Science4Girls and Their Families (NS4G) partners NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) education programs with public libraries to provide hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities and career information for girls and their families, along with training for librarians, in conjunction with Women's History Month (March). NS4G is a collaboration among education teams within the four NASA SMD education and public outreach (E/PO) Forums: Planetary, Earth, Astrophysics, and Heliophysics. It began in 2012 as an Astrophysics-led program (Astro4Girls) with 9 events around the country. Upon expanding among the four Forums, over 73 events were held in Spring 2013 (Fig. 1), with preparations underway for events in Spring 2014. All events are individually evaluated by both the student participants and participating librarians to assess their effectiveness in addressing audience needs.

SCIENCE4GIRLS↗

Education for PV Modeling Professionals: Observations from the 2025 PVPMC Workshop

We surveyed professionals in the photovoltaic industry to understand interests in education and training for performance modeling of solar power systems. We found that most professionals are self-taught and rely on a variety of public sources of technical materials. Available formal education, such as courses or certification programs, either lacks detail or is focused on software user training. Responses indicate several opportunities to create public resources that would benefit professional learning for solar power system modeling: • Create a glossary of terms and common variable names. • Develop guidance on uncertainty analysis in the context of solar power systems modeling. • Assemble a catalog of available educational materials and data sources.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Program on application of communications satellites to educational development

Interdisciplinary research in needs analysis, communications technology studies, and systems synthesis is reported. Existing and planned educational telecommunications services are studied and library utilization of telecommunications is described. Preliminary estimates are presented of ranges of utilization of educational telecommunications services for 1975 and 1985; instructional and public television, computer-aided instruction, computing resources, and information resource sharing for various educational levels and purposes. Communications technology studies include transmission schemes for still-picture television, use of Gunn effect devices, and TV receiver front ends for direct satellite reception at 12 GHz. Two major studies in the systems synthesis project concern (1) organizational and administrative aspects of a large-scale instructional satellite system to be used with schools and (2) an analysis of future development of instructional television, with emphasis on the use of video tape recorders and cable television. A communications satellite system synthesis program developed for NASA is now operational on the university IBM 360-50 computer.

Morgan, R. P.↗

Sources of support for remote sensing education

Past financial support for educational programs in remote sensing came largely in the form of short courses funded by the National Science Foundation. Later NASA began to fund such courses for local and state government and for some university participants in its regional programs. The greater impact came from the funding by a variety of federal agencies for remote sensing research projects at educational institutions throughout the country. Probably the best and most significant example of these programs, from the university standpoint is, and should continue to be, the NASA university affairs programs, which with its long term step funding of a number of institutions has probably done more for remote sensing education than any other federal program in this country. An incomplete listing of federal agencies that support remote sensing research at the university level is presented.

Estes, J. E.↗

NASA educational briefs

In response to a large public demand for information, the Educational Services Branch of NASA has undertaken a series of publications designed for use by teachers, titled 'Educational Briefs for the Classroom', which has resulted in six to eight issues each year for the last three years. Typical of the topics to which the series is dedicated have been space suits, manned spaceflight mission summaries, solar cells, planetary encounter data, orbits, and rocketry. The planning committee for Educational Briefs is aided in its selection of topics by the many letters received by NASA. Following the Voyager Saturn flybys, NASA received more than 175,000 letters from both children and adults.

Vogt, G. L.↗

NASA/American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program, 1985

Since 1964, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has supported a program of summer faculty fellowships for engineering and science educators. In a series of collaborations between NASA research and development centers and nearby universities, engineering faculty members spend 10 weeks working with professional peers on research. The Summer Faculty Program Committee of the American Society for Engineering Education supervises the programs. The objectives of this program are: (1) to further the professional knowledge of qualified engineering and science faculty members; (2) to simulate and exchange ideas between participants and NASA; (3) to enrich and refresh the research and teaching activities of participants institutions; and (4) to contribute to the research objectives of the NASA center. College or university faculty members will be appointed as research fellows to spend 10 weeks in cooperative research and study at the NASA Langley Research Center. The fellows will devote approximately 90 percent of the time to a research problem and the remaining time to a study program. The study program will consist of lectures and seminars on topics of general interest or that are directly relevant to the fellows' research project. The lecturers and seminar leaders will be distinguished scientists and engineers from NASA, the educational community, or industry.

Goglia, G.↗

To catch a childs's imagination: Educational overview of CAN DO G-324

When a public school district is involved in the flight of a GAS package, they have a The desire to produce an serious responsibility, along with an unprecedented opportunity. experiment with real scientific validity must be tempered by the schools' primary mission to make the adventure educationally meaningful to the greatest possible number of students. Such a project can easily become the personal plaything of the select few that are highly scientifically motivated, and technologically gifted. A public school system must, in addition, insure that the resources invested in such a project also reach out to the average student, and those whose interests lie in other directions. Such a broad reach is only possible if the GAS canister is but one part of a comprehensive and ongoing educational effort that involves as many disciplines and levels of student interest as possible. The total program should include: 1) A background of previous programs which have trained teachers and prepared students to fully utilize special activities as part of the educational process. 2) Direct student involvement in the design of experimental packages to be flown, and in the evaluation of data derived. 3) Supplementary related activities that use a Get Away Special as a motivational catalyst to generate efforts in other disciplines, other schools and other student groups. 4) Future plans to fully exploit and maintain the momentum developed by this one dramatic event. The one overriding goal of all these activities as articulated by one of our leading classroom teachers: "TO CHOOSE AND DEVELOP HIGHLY MOTIVATION& ACTIVITIES WHICH WILL CAPTURE THE IMAGINATION AND INTEREST OF STUDENTS, AND TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE "TEACHABLE MOMENT" WHICH IS SO ELUSIVE."

James H. Nicholson↗

Closing the gap in systems engineering education for the space industry

The education of system engineers with emphasis on designing systems for space applications is discussed. System engineers determine the functional requirements, performance needs, and implementation procedures for proposed systems and their education is based on aeronautics and mathematics. Recommendations from industry for improving the curriculum of system engineers at the undergraduate and graduate levels are provided. The assistance provided by companies to the education of system engineers is examined.

Carlisle, R.↗

Teacher in Space Program - The challenge to education in the space age

An account is given of the significant events which occurred in the Teacher in Space Program following the Challenger Space Shuttle accident on January 28, 1986. The analysis indicates that the accident has not prevented the continuing effective implementation of the three educational goals of the Teacher in Space Program which are to: (1) raise the prestige of the teaching profession, (2) increase the awareness in the education community of the impact of technology and science on this country's future in preparing students for the future, and (3) use aeronautics and space as a catalyst to enhance all subject areas and grade levels of U.S. education systems.

Brown, R. W.↗

Texstar: The all-Texas educational satellite system

Longhorn Satellite Company (LSC) has designed Texstar, and educational satellite communications system which will be considered as a means of equalizing the distribution of educational resources throughout the state of Texas. Texstar will be capable of broadcasting live lectures and documentaries in addition to transmitting data from a centralized receiving-transmitting station. Included in the design of Texstar is the system and subsystem design for the satellite and the design of the ground stations. The launch vehicle used will be the Texas-built Conestoga 421-48. The Texstar system incorporates three small satellites in slightly inclined geosynchronous orbits. Due to the configuration and spacing of these satellites, the system will be accessed as if it were one large, geostationary satellite. Texstar is shown to be a viable option to the educational crisis in the state of Texas.

Source record↗

A mandate for space education

Issues related to public education in preparation for a manned Mars program are discussed. Consideration is given to the near- and long-term goals of the space program, the benefits of human expansion in space, and long-range planning for fundamental problem areas in space education. Important concerns for space educators are outlined.

Von Puttkamer, Jesco↗

NASA's engineering research centers and interdisciplinary education

A new program of interactive education between NASA and the academic community aims to improve research and education, provide long-term, stable funding, and support cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research. The mission of NASA's Office of Aeronautics, Exploration and Technology (OAET) is discussed and it is pointed out that the OAET conducts about 10 percent of its total R&D program at U.S. universities. Other NASA university-based programs are listed including the Office of Commercial Programs Centers for the Commercial Development of Space (CCDS) and the National Space Grant program. The importance of university space engineering centers and the selection of the nine current centers are discussed. A detailed composite description is provided of the University Space Engineering Research Centers. Other specialized centers are described such as the Center for Space Construction, the Mars Mission Research Center, and the Center for Intelligent Robotic Systems for Space Exploration. Approaches to educational outreach are discussed.

Johnston, Gordon I.↗

Trends in aeropropulsion research and their impact on engineering education

This presentation is concerned with the trends in aeropropulsion both in the U.S. and abroad and the impact of these trends on the educational process in our universities. In this paper, we shall outline the new directions for research which may be of interest to educators in the aeropropulsion field. Awareness of new emphases, such as emission reductions, noise control, maneuverability, speed, etc., will have a great impact on engineering educators responsible for restructuring courses in propulsion. The information presented herein will also provide some background material for possible consideration in the future development of propulsion courses. In describing aeropropulsion, we are concerned primarily with air-breathing propulsion; however many observations apply equally as well to rocket engine systems. Aeropropulsion research needs are primarily motivated by technologies required for advanced vehicle systems and frequently driven by external requirements such as economic competitiveness, environmental concern and national security. In this presentation, vehicle based research is first described, followed by a discussion of discipline and multidiscipline research necessary to implement the vehicle-focused programs. The importance of collaboration in research and the training of future researchers concludes this presentation.

Povinelli, Louis A.↗