The Florida Association of Community Colleges (FACC) recognized FLATE Leadership Team member Brad Jenkins and FLATE Associate Director Dr. Marie Boyette at the November 2010 Crossroads Convention in Jacksonville. St. Petersburg College’s (SPC) Engineering Technology program under Brad’s leadership was the recipient of a 2010 Chancellor’s Best Practice Award for recognition of programs that strive to be the most efficient and innovative in the Florida college system. This program prepares students for employment or provides additional training for persons previously or currently employed in the manufacturing, medical, electronics, aerospace, and other related industries. The A.S. engineering technology degree is a planned sequence of instruction consisting of four specializations: electronics, quality, digital design and modeling, and biomedical systems with one common core. This flexible degree allows for additional technical specializations and certificates that are needed to stay up with advanced technology. Thus, local industry can identify the training gaps that exist and SPC can fill those gaps without developing a brand new A.S. Degree.
A double tube heat exchanger has an inlet and outlet for each of its tubes. In most cases, one tube is inserted inside the other and the hot fluid to be cooled is allowed to pass through the inside tube. After any maintenance or installation operation, the technician conducts a system test by monitoring the temperature response as each of the two fluids pass through its corresponding tube for a fixed time period at a fixed fluid flow rate. In this specific test result’s report the outside tube temperature is reported as line (a), the blue line.
Are we as a nation heading in the right direction with the many different programs and various approaches to enhance STEM education throughout the educational continuum, K-20? What have we learned from the past? What do we know about good teaching and learning practices that we should now implement? Will putting more money into the silos of STEM help produce the STEM workers we need now and will need more of in the future? Is it time for systemic change In STEM education practices? In addition to STEM workers with specific skills and knowledge to support emerging technologies, our country will also need for all citizens to be STEM literate.
Dr. Rodger Bybee, past executive director of the National Research Council’s Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education (CSMEE), and director emeritus of the BSCS (Biological Science Curriculum Moving towards STEM literacy) defines STEM literacy with these 4 bullets:
• Acquiring scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematical knowledge and using that knowledge to solve and interpret STEM-related issues.
• Understanding the characteristic features of STEM disciplines as forms of human endeavors that include the processes of inquiry, design, and analysis.
• Recognizing how STEM disciplines shape our material, intellectual, and cultural world.
• Engaging in STEM-related issues with the ideas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics as concerned, affected, and constructive citizens.
Further, Dr. Bybee suggests alternative definitions of and approaches to STEM education, centering education on contextual-STEM. One strategy would include health, energy efficiency, natural resources, environmental quality, hazard mitigation and frontiers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These “units” would be studied at various levels: personal (self, family, and peers); social (community); and global (life across the world). These units are problem-based and offer relevancy to the theory and abstract nature of pure math and science. Food for thought for all of us. Please feel free to comment and share your ideas below in this blog.
November is always very special for us at FLATE because we celebrate our annual educator and industry award winners as well as MAF’s Manufacturers of the year. Read about David, Dean and Art and their successes as well as their tireless commitment to manufacturing education. Know someone doing great things in or for education? You will be able to nominate them as early as March for the 2011 FLATE awards. Didn’t get the last sTEm puzzle? Try again this month sTEm puzzle #13 might bring you luck in cracking its sTEm connections.
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Dave Lintner |
Dave Lintner was named Manufacturing Secondary Educator-of-the-Year. Lintner who is an industrial education and technology teacher at Ridge Community High School in Davenport, FL is a former engineer who has taught industrial technology in Michigan and Florida for over three decades. He brings insider’s knowledge of having worked in various segments of manufacturing into the classroom and says “integrating that valuable experience into teaching has been very important as well as a real plus with all the various projects his students have completed over the years.”
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Dean Eavey at the MAF Summit |
On the post-secondary level, Dean Eavey, associate professor of business and technology division and program manager for electronics engineering technology and computer integration manufacturing (CIM) at Gulf Coast Community College (GCCC) in Panama City will receive the Manufacturing Post-Secondary Educator-of-the-Year Award. Eavey who has served in this capacity for the past ten years is part of a $500,000 grant from the Department of Labor geared to promote manufacturing training in Florida. His driving force lies in preparing students to enter the field of high-tech manufacturing and witness them succeed. This he says helps them pursue rewarding careers and helps the country remain globally competitive.
At the legislative level he played a pivotal role in formulating the Career and Professional Education (CAPE) Act which changed the deployment of career and technical education programs in school districts throughout Florida. This spearheaded the establishment of CAPE career academies that have allowed students to operate in small learning communities focused on earning national industry certifications. Hoelke has also supported Brevard County School District’s career and technical efforts by providing paid summer internships for several Brevard County’s engineering technology teachers, and has been instrumental in establishing inroads that have facilitated a number of opportunities for students and incumbent workers across the state.
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Art Hoelke at the MAF Summit |
Art’s partnerships with various educators and industry leaders also paved a path for Heritage High School in Brevard County to offer the M.S.S.C industrial credential that articulates 15 credit hours into Brevard Community College’s two year A.S. degree in engineering technology. Art also provided numerous hours of community support while serving on the advisory committee for Space Coast High Schools’ engineering academy. He worked closely with the academy’s teachers, volunteered Knight’s Armament as a field trip site for students, and facilitated national manufacturing experts to make local presentations to students. Furthermore, he is intricately involved with Reusable Resources—another organization that teaches kids to build products from recycled materials.
Watch the video on GCCC’s Robotics CIM program
The linear variable differential transformer, LVDT, is a sensor that indicates the linear change in the horizontal (vertical) position of a robotic arm and sends an electrical signal to indicate how much differential movement has occurred. The sensor makes symmetrical differential distance measurements; the output signal provided by the LVDT is simply a % of the total output signal the sensor can deliver. In addition, the detected movement is expressed as % of total possible translation of the sensor movement shaft on either side of the null position. The technician routinely runs performance tests on the LVDT to be sure the LVDT meets operational expectations. A summary of one of those tests is provided.
The LVD for this robot system is operating correctly. (yes or no). Submit your answers at https://www.fl-ate.org/
Iverson points to America as one of the most technologically savvy nations in the world. Given his numerous engagements and insider’s know-how of manufacturing, he often wondered about his customers’ inability to find good, skilled talent for their manufacturing requirements. He says he noticed a loss of manufacturing’s lure over young people, and a disappearance of high school/apprentice programs. Iverson also points to an ageing workforce as one of the current challenges manufacturers face across the board. As jobs get outsourced, and manufacturing processes get more automated and technologically savvy he notes an immediate need for young and fresh minds, as well as a high-skilled, educated workforce.
Taking all of this into account, he decided to take action, to do something, to make a difference in the manufacturing industry. In March, 2010 Iverson founded a not-for-profit organization called C.H.A.M.P.I.O.N. Now which stands for Change How American Manufacturing is Perceived In Our Nation-Now! The NOW represents an immediate call to action for change that will impact young people by tearing down misconceptions of manufacturing perpetuated via the media or traditional ideas, and encouraging them to pursue career choices in skilled areas of high-tech manufacturing.
You can join Terry’s cause at www.championnow.org, or contact him at tiverson@iversonandco.com.
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