Collaborative Research - Live Energy

该项目是一个合作项目，涉及得克萨斯州农工大学，斯坦福大学，宾夕法尼亚州立大学，加州州立大学长滩，和草原视图农工大学。 研究人员团队正在开发一个不断更新的能源可持续性在线教科书，以支持专业和非专业的核心科学和工程课程。该项目建立在国家科学基金会早期的一个项目上，该项目试图开发一种传统的教科书，这表明需要为这样一个充满活力和广泛的领域提供替代教育材料。 这一需求正通过一个在线资源得到满足，该资源随着知识库的扩大而不断增长和系统更新，使用的技术是典型的印刷教科书所不具备的。教科书涉及化石，替代和可再生能源;能源转换，利用和提取;和环境影响。 该项目的目标是：（1）实施协作技术，使许多内容编写者能够同时工作（2）编写教科书内容，并以对每个合作机构有效的形式将其组装起来，（3）评估与印刷教科书相比对学生学习的教学价值，（4）对K-12教师群体中代表性不足的群体进行宣传，将其作为在线内容的潜在开发者和用户，（5）传播教材本身和评价其教学价值的研究成果。 在独立专家的指导下，评估工作正在使用各种方法来监测（1）在线教科书对学生内容学习的影响，对能源和工程领域的态度，以及在线资源的学习技能;（2）教师合作开发在线资源的特点;（3）采用开发的资源。 Connexions网站被用于宣传和传播教科书;评估结果将张贴在调查人员的网站上，在工程教育会议上介绍，并在期刊文章中描述。 更广泛的影响包括各种机构之间的合作，在K-12外联中关注代表性不足的群体，以及传播材料和评估结果。

The project is a collaboration involving Texas A&M University, Stanford University, The Pennsylvania State University, California State University Long Beach, and, Prairie View A&M University. The team of investigators is developing a continuously updated online textbook on energy sustainability to support core science and engineering courses for both majors and non majors. The project builds on an earlier NSF project in which attempts to develop a traditional textbook suggested the need for alternative educational material for such a dynamic and extensive field. This need is being met by an online resource that grows and is updated systematically as the knowledge base expands, using technologies that are not available in a typical printed textbook. The textbook addresses fossil, alternative, and renewable energy sources; energy conversions, utilization and extraction; and environmental impacts. The project goals are to: (1) implement collaborative technology that enables many content writers to work simultaneously (2) write the textbook content and assemble it in a form that is effective for each of the partner institutions, (3) assess the pedagogical value to student learning compared to that with a printed textbook, (4) conduct outreach to underrepresented groups in the K-12 teacher population as potential developers and users of the created on line content, and (5) disseminate the textbook itself and study results assessing its pedagogical value. Evaluation efforts, under the direction of an independent expert, are using an assortment of approaches to monitor (1) the impact of the online textbook on student content leaning, attitudes about energy and the engineering field, and learning skills with online resources; (2) the characteristics of faculty collaboration in developing online resources; and (3) the adoption of the developed resources. The Connexions website is being used to publicize and disseminate the textbook; evaluation results will be posted on the investigators' website, presented at engineering education conferences, and described in journal articles. Broader impacts include the collaboration among a diverse set of institutions, the focus on underrepresented groups in the K-12 outreach, and the dissemination of the material and evaluation results.