GRANT ACTIVITIES IN THE NEWS: 

IVCC Professor and NSF Grant co-PI Sue Caley Opsal Selected for National Symposium

Lincoln Junior High Girls and IVCC's Middle School Program Featured at California Conference

Building an Engineering Technology Workforce: 
A Plan for Reaching Young People, Adults and Women

#0802505 totaling $520,975 for 2008 - 2011

In 2008, IVCC received a grant from the National Science Foundation to recruit students into engineering-related careers. The three-year Advanced Technological Education grant focuses on increasing awareness of and interest in engineering among middle school and high school students, adults and women in the IVCC district.

Grant initiatives address the barriers that prevent each of the target groups from selecting engineering careers:

• for young people the major barrier is perceived difficulty

• for adults the major barrier is lack of awareness of engineering career benefits

• for women the major barrier is the perception of engineering as not feminine and not relevant to their lives

Major project activities include:

• Offering project-based, short-term events to interest a broad base of high school and middle school students.

• Offering project-based camps for middle school students and young women.

• Organizing high school engineering technology clubs

• Offering a Taste of Engineering Careers course (guitar building), for college credit, to high school juniors and seniors.

• Creating a Leadership Team for high school students

• Providing exciting special projects for high school students.

• Developing and disseminating promotional materials targeting young people, parents, adults and women.

• Publicizing successes of participants in area media.