Expanding Educational Opportunities for Secondary and Post-Secondary Educators and Students in the Technology and Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems

无人驾驶飞机系统（UAS）或“无人机”行业的劳动力市场研究表明，UAS现在是全国许多地区就业和经济增长的重要驱动力。由于该行业的主要雇主以及众多其他中小型企业，UAS行业在圣地亚哥地区建立得很好。随着无人机在各种学科中的应用越来越多，该地区的前景也在不断增长。然而，尽管市场需求旺盛，但无人机服务提供商和相关组织正在争先恐后地填补无人机相关职位的空缺，技能缺口正在扩大。此计划将为中学及专上教育工作者和学生提供多种教育机会，以满足不断发展的教育行业的需要，例如：1)最新和相关的工作课程；2)合作中学和大专院校之间的衔接协议；3)无人机应用与运营专业开发工作坊；4)专门为学生（其中许多人来自传统上服务不足和代表性不足的社区）提供有关UAS应用、教育机会和职业道路的信息和激励的暑期高中学院。夏季学院的一个独特之处在于招收了来自太平洋岛屿的学生，为圣地亚哥县和太平洋岛屿的学生提供了一个机会，让他们在文化上联系起来，相互学习，用不同的全球视角一起解决问题，并有可能与来自世界不同地区的人建立终身联系。项目团队包括大学教师、中学合作伙伴、教育顾问和行业专业人士。这项计划将为中学及大专学生提供相关的课程和教育机会，使他们更有能力成为有技能和有思想的人才。该项目的使命是加强无人机技术和应用方面的教育机会和职业道路，使中学生和大学生能够在不断扩大的无人机领域成为成功的员工或企业家。为了实现这一使命，将实施三个目标，每个目标都有一系列的目标、活动和可交付成果：1)课程：在与行业和教育合作伙伴协商后，项目团队将：a)创建与行业一致的基于工作的学习项目；b)开发和提供无人机摄影和摄像的高级课程；c)创建一套工程学习模块（制造、维护和定制），在现有的工程入门课程中提供，然后将其添加到项目选修课列表中。2)专业发展：UAS被用于各种学科，因此，重要的是，这些学科的中学和高等教育工作者在UAS应用中有实践的专业发展机会，这样他们就可以与学生分享这些信息。作为为期两天的研讨会的一部分，参与者将创建课程，这些课程将被审查并放置在国家自主技术中心（NCAT）资源库中。3)中学教育：为了将高中学习经历与大学和职业联系起来，该项目将进行以下活动：a)合作高中的UAS课程将被交叉使用，并在需要的地方进行修改，以便与大学课程相结合。这门清晰的课程将为学生创造一条学术管道，因为该课程将有助于学生获得西南学院无人机技术与应用证书。b)该项目将为圣地亚哥县和太平洋岛屿的学生举办混合夏季无人机学院。在这些学院，学生们将接受飞行训练、数据收集/处理、自主飞行编码和协作解决问题的实时指导。项目评估将包括整个3年项目的形成性反馈，以及年度评估报告，以评估实现目标和目的的进展情况。项目结束时的总结性评价将检查战略的有效性，并对项目实现其目标的程度进行全面评估。为了最大限度地发挥影响，项目的最佳做法和结果内容将在出版物、各种会议和NCAT上进行记录和传播。该项目由先进技术教育计划资助，该计划侧重于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Labor market studies of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or “Drones” industry indicate that UAS is now a significant driver of job and economic growth in many regions across the nation. The UAS industry is well established in the San Diego region thanks to major employers in the industry as well as numerous other small to medium sized businesses. The outlook in the region is growing as the use of UAS across a variety of disciplines is increasing. Yet despite the high demand in the market, the skills gap is rising leaving drone service providers and related organizations scrambling to fill drone-related positions. This project will address the needs of an ever-expanding industry by providing both secondary and post-secondary educators and students with a variety of educational opportunities, such as: 1) Up-to-date and relevant work-based curriculum; 2) Articulation agreements between partnering secondary and post-secondary institutions; 3) Professional development workshops in UAS applications and operations; and 4) Summer high school academies specifically designed to inform and excite students (many of whom are from traditionally underserved and underrepresented communities) about UAS applications, educational opportunities, and career pathways. A unique element of the summer academies is the inclusion of students from the Pacific Islands, providing an opportunity for students from San Diego County and the Pacific Islands to become culturally connected, learn from one another, work together with different global perspectives to solve problems, and potentially make life-long connections with someone from a different part of the world. The project team includes college faculty, secondary school partners, educational consultants, and industry professionals. This project will provide relevant curriculum and educational opportunities for both secondary and post-secondary students, better preparing them to become skilled and thoughtful members of the UAS workforce.The mission of this project is to strengthen the educational opportunities and career pathways in drone technology and applications for secondary and post-secondary students so that they can succeed as employees or entrepreneurs in the ever-expanding UAS field. To meet the mission, three goals will be implemented, each with a set of objectives, activities, and deliverables: 1) Curriculum: In consultation with industry and education partners, the project team will: a) Create industry-aligned work-based learning projects; b) Develop and offer an advanced course in drone photography and videography; c) Create a set of engineering learning modules (in manufacturing, maintenance, and customization) to be offered in existing introductory engineering courses which will then be added to the list of program electives. 2) Professional Development: UAS are being used across a variety of disciplines, therefore it is important that secondary and post-secondary educators in those disciplines have hands-on, professional development opportunities in UAS applications so that they can share this information with their students. As part of the 2-day workshops, participants will create curriculum that will be vetted and placed on the National Center for Autonomous Technologies (NCAT) resource repository. 3) Secondary Education: In order to link high school learning experiences to college and careers, the project will do the following activities: a) Partner high school UAS curriculum will be cross-walked and modified where needed in order to articulate it to the college curriculum. The articulated course will create an academic pipeline for students, as the course will go toward the completion of the Southwestern College Drone Technology and Applications Certificate. b) The project will host hybrid summer drone academies for students in San Diego County and the Pacific Islands. At the academies, students will receive real-time instruction on flight training, data collection/processing, autonomous flight coding, and collaborative problem solving. The project evaluation will include formative feedback throughout the 3-year project along with annual evaluation reports that will assess progress towards achieving the goals and objectives. A summative evaluation at the end of the project will examine the effectiveness of strategies and provide an overall assessment of how well the project has met its goals. To maximize impact, the best practices and resulting content of the project will be documented and disseminated in publications, at various conferences, and on NCAT. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.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.