Workshops for Facilitating Faculty to Teach Electric Energy Courses for Combating Climate Change. To Be Held at The University of Minnesota.

全球气候正在迅速变化，97%的气候科学家认为气候变化是由于人类活动。一切照旧将导致灾难性的后果，最贫穷的人将站在第一线。要认真应对气候变化，就必须尽快将温室气体的排放量减少到接近零的水平，以免达到不可逆转的地步，这就需要将我们的大部分能源使用，包括运输，从化石燃料转换为太阳能和风能等可再生能源发电。可再生能源在本质上是可变的，因此不间断的电力供应将需要一个具有存储功能的“智能电网”。最后，必须非常有效地保存和消耗这种能量。 为了实现这一目标，电力的设计、制造、输送和消费都将发生翻天覆地的变化。 教育永远是第一步，仔细看看美国大学提供的课程名称，就会发现只有少数几所大学提供适当的课程。 因此，尽快在尽可能多的大学开设这类课程至关重要。为此，明尼苏达大学在美国海军海军研究办公室（ONR）的资助下，开发了大量的前瞻性课程。 这些课程将来自全国各地的学术和工业专家的机构知识存档，其明确目的是成为所有大学和学院的教师的资源，以教他们自己的学生教老师，作为力量倍增器。此外，任何人都可以免费下载所有课程的内容，从而使其也可供执业工程师使用。通过NSF的资助，将举办三个教师讲习班，开发这些课程的专家将使大学教师熟悉-该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

The global climate is changing rapidly and 97% of the climate scientists agree that it's changing because of human activities. The business as usual will result in catastrophic consequences with poorest of the poor at the frontline. Combating climate change in a serious way will necessitate that the emission of greenhouse gases be reduced to near-zero levels very soon, before the point of no return is reached.This will require converting much of our energy use including transportation from fossil fuels to electricity generated from renewables such as solar and wind. Renewables are variable in nature and therefore an uninterruptible supply of electricity will require a "smart grid" with storage. Finally, this energy must be conserved and consumed very efficiently. To achieve this goal will entail a sea change in designing, manufacturing, delivering and consuming electricity. Education is always the first step and a thorough look at the titles of the courses offered at the U.S. universities shows that only a handful of universities are offering appropriate courses. Therefore, it is essential to quickly implement such courses at as many universities as possible.With this challenge in mind, large numbers of forward-looking courses have been developed at the University of Minnesota through funding by the U.S. Navy, the Office of Naval Research (ONR). These courses archive the institutional knowledge of academic and industrial experts from across the country, with the express purpose of being a resource for instructors at all universities and colleges to teach their own students teaching the teachers, as a force-multiplier. In addition, the content of all the course can be freely downloaded by anyone, thus making it accessible to practicing engineers as well. Through this NSF grant, three faculty workshops will be held where the experts who developed these courses will familiarize the university instructors in-person who can then quickly implement these courses at their home institutions for the nationwide development of the workforce to combat climate change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.