Building Efficiency for a sustainable Tomorrow (BEST) Center

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Commercial buildings are a predominant feature of U.S. cities. Such buildings form the physical infra-structure for people working in many economic sectors. The technicians who operate these buildings are largely invisible to building occupants, occasionally seen responding to a complaint about room temperature or repairing equipment. Climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and new digital technologies are creating a new dynamic for the work of building technicians, increasing the importance of their role, expanding the knowledge and skills required of them, and raising expectations about the quality of their work. Today’s building technicians must be prepared to manage the complex building automation, data analytics, and energy management systems of the high-performance “sustainable” buildings of the future. This project will support the BEST Center transitioning to a Resource Center to continue to serve the community for the collection, dissemination, and adoption of programs, courses, lab applications, and innovative instructional methods for the advanced technological education of building systems technicians. The BEST Resource Center will support the development of building technician education programs at community and technical colleges nationwide, engage industry to support this effort, and strengthen the national STEM pipeline. The Center will have 3 goals: 1) Transform the instructional capacity of community colleges in the field of building technician education, with an emphasis on High Performance Building Operations Technical-Professional (HPBOT-P) and Building Automation Specialist (BAS) curriculum alignment and certification; 2) Engage industry stakeholders and research partners in a national collaboration with community colleges to support high-quality building science instructional programs; and 3) Strengthen the national STEM pipeline for building technicians through outreach to high school students, women, and populations traditionally underrepresented in building science. 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.