THE ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY CENTER (ATEEC) Summative External Evaluation July 1, 2013 – June 30, 2014 PRELIMINARY OUTLINE

Prepared for the ATEEC National Visiting Committee by The Sheinkopf Group March, 2014 Note: This presentation has been prepared with more than three months remaining in this year’s program. There is still a great deal of information being collected that will be used in our evaluation due June 30, However, here is an overview of the report contents and some of the accomplishments to date.

This report looks at the impact of the current ATEEC programs and activities on educators, students, and other audiences involved in energy and environmental education around the United States. The following information is being provided to the National Visiting Committee today to highlight some of the accomplishments during the first nine months of this year’s program. The final report will include more complete information on each activity.

I. Project Goals, Objectives, Deliverables, and Activities Objective 1: Provide support and mentoring for institutions that wish to start or improve educational programs in environmental science and sustainable energy technologies. Activity 1: Revise the Best Practices manual. This has been an ongoing activity, and the report is now complete.

Activity 2: Provide professional development activities on the ATEEC Resource Center website. Two water-related webinars were held this year: “Water Considerations and Project Management” (November 21, 2013) and “Defining Water Management.” (December 4, 2013). The recordings of each webinar along with a summary of the programs and other information are posted on the web site.

Objective 2: Provide mentor services to ATE projects. Objective 3: Establish and support additional industry, business, academic partnerships. At this time, plans have been finalized for the Defining Environmental Technology Forum in Chicago set for last week. It is estimated that 20 people would be attending. As already noted, a Defining Water Management webinar has been held. Full information and a recording of the webinar are posted on the ATEEC web site.

In addition, the “Defining Water Management” report and careers chart are now available on the ATEEC web site. Activity 2: Revise Technology and Environmental Decision- making educational modules.

Objective 4: Promote technician careers, visibility and the public image of environmental and sustainable energy technology. Activity 1: Create interactive Defining Energy Technologies and Services, Defining Water Technologies and Services, and Defining Environmental Technologies and Services websites for high school career counselors or students. These websites are planned to be functional by this meeting.

Activity 2: Revise the national directory of traditional and online environmental and energy technology programs. This is an ongoing activity that is done on a regular basis during the year.

Objective 5: Address technician knowledge, skills and competencies needed for the evolving, converging and emerging technical workplace. Activity 1: Conduct DACUMs at NSF ATE Project college sites. A great deal of activity on DACUMs has taken place this year. ATEEC is presently scheduled to hold five DACUMs each year though there appears to be a need for more of them. Charts on the ATEEC web site link to resources. Because of the importance of this activity, we anticipate that this will be a large section in this year’s report. We have extensive information on the workshops, including their outcomes and surveys of all participants.

Activity 2: Conduct two PETE regional conferences during each project year to address technician knowledge, skills and competencies in the workplace. PETE has sent us information on one conference that was conducted so far this year. It was held in Tacoma, WA, in July. Full information and evaluations have been received and will be included. A second one was planned for March 18 – 20 in Kansas and we are waiting for information on the program. Their programs continue to be very well received by the attendees and evaluations are very strong.

Activity 3: Expand the Resource Center scope beyond environmental and energy educators to include technician educators in other career fields that require knowledge of environmental and energy technology.

Objective 6: Screen, validate, update, and broadly distribute exemplary materials, curricula and pedagogical practices adapted for designed by ATE centers and projects and other sources.

Activity 1: Update the ATEEC Resource Center website. Work is underway on developing the new platform for the water technologies and services chart. A new water programs database has been added to the ATEEC web site. An ongoing activity is updating the online map of environmental and energy programs around the country. Information on water has been added to this map.

Activity 2: Update the eERL website. ATEEC continues to update this site on an ongoing basis. Vetters have been selected for the products on the site and a new vetting web site has been developed for the reviewers and the project manager. ATEEC plans to have 20 resources vetted each month and the resources that make it through the process will be uploaded for dissemination. There is now a new contractor working on this site. The site has been redesigned and is online at

II. Other Current ATEEC Activities 1.The ATEEC website * We surveyed users of the ATEEC website between July 1, 2013, and November 1, 2013, and have obtained feedback from some of them. * Surveys were sent this week to the people who visited the site between November 1, 2013, and March 15, 2014.

2. Survey of the National Visiting Committee A survey has been developed and will be sent again this year to committee members to obtain feedback on the current programs and to identify new projects and activities that will further help ATEEC meet the program’s objectives. You will receive the survey by next week. Please take a few minutes to provide us with your comments and ideas.

III. Summary Because this new contract runs through July 1 each year, it is too early to compile and report on all the completed activities (the former contract ran through April 1). A great deal of information is being collected between now and May 30 so that a draft can be sent to ATEEC for review by early June. That allows them time to review a draft of the document, make edits and additions, and give us time to submit the final document by June 30. Our preliminary thoughts? It’s been another great year for ATEEC!