Enhancing Career Pathways to Green Jobs in High-performance Building Technology

建筑占美国总能源消耗的很大一部分。让建筑更节能是高性能建筑技术行业的目标。实现这一目标需要雇佣更多的建筑性能技术人员，但这些技术人员的需求超过了供应。建筑性能技术工作包括设施运行和维护的方方面面，包括全系统分析和能源管理。因此，在建筑技术人员队伍中取得成功需要安装、实施和维护复杂建筑系统所需的知识和技能。该项目旨在通过创建一个新的可堆叠证书计划，为高中生提供双重招生课程，为高中教师提供培训，并开展外联活动，增加高技能建筑性能技术人员的渠道。通过将职业道路扩展到建筑性能劳动力，该项目旨在扩大女性和其他群体的参与，这些女性和其他群体在建筑技术劳动力中的代表性不足，并且受到新冠肺炎大爆炸的不成比例的影响。该项目将满足俄亥俄州西南部对入门级高性能建筑技术人员的巨大且不断增长的需求。该项目的总体目标是扩大熟练技术人员的渠道，这些技术人员具有降低建筑能耗的技能。为此，该项目将开发一种嵌入行业认可证书的可堆叠短期证书。获得该证书的学生将准备参加行业认证考试，并进入建筑性能劳动力大军。该项目的具体目标包括：(1)创建一个可供高中生完成的新的中学后证书课程；(2)培训高中教师提供中学后课程内容；(3)试行一项外联计划，以提高年轻人，特别是在建筑技术员队伍中没有公平代表性的社区对技术职业机会的认识；(4)提供一种结构化的方法，引导高中生和失业/未充分就业的成年人走上职业生涯发展之路；以及(5)通过使用最新的建筑技术升级实验室，改善学生的学习。利用学生调查、学生访谈和机构数据，该项目将评估证书计划对学生学习的影响，以及外展活动对从技术劳动力中代表性不足的社区招收学生的影响。该项目由高级技术教育计划资助，该计划专注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NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Buildings account for a major portion of the total U.S. energy consumption. Making buildings more energy efficient is a goal of the high-performance building technology industry. Achieving this goal requires hiring more building performance technicians, but the demand for these technicians outstrips the supply. Building performance technical work includes all aspects of facility operations and maintenance, including whole-system analysis and energy management. Thus, success in the building technology workforce requires the knowledge and skills needed to install, implement, and maintain complex building systems. This project intends to increase the pipeline of highly skilled building performance technicians by creating a new stackable certificate program, offering dual enrollment courses for high school students, providing training for high school teachers, and conducting outreach activities. By expanding career pathways into the building performance workforce, the project aims to broaden participation of women and other groups that are underrepresented in the building technology workforce and that have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.This project will address a significant and growing demand for entry-level high performance building technicians in Southwest Ohio. The overall goal of the project is to expand the pipeline of skilled technicians who have the skills to reduce energy consumption in buildings. To this end, the project will develop a stackable short-term certificate with embedded industry-recognized credentials. Students who earn this credential will be prepared to take industry certification exams and enter the building performance workforce. Specific aims of the project include to: (1) create a new postsecondary certificate program that can be completed by high school students; (2) train high school teachers to deliver postsecondary course content; (3) pilot an outreach program to raise awareness of technical career opportunities among youth, particularly from communities not equitably represented in the building technician workforce; (4) provide a structured approach to guide high school students and unemployed/ underemployed adults onto building performance career pathways; and (5) improve student learning by upgrading labs with the latest building technologies. Using student surveys, student interviews, and institutional data, the project will assess the impact of the certificate program on student learning and the impact of outreach activities on recruiting students from communities that are underrepresented in the technical workforce. 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.