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JIM TURNER: Welcome to today's webinar on Energy 101. I am Jim Turner, Director of Energy Programs at APLU and I will be today's moderator. At the outset, I must say that we are very pleased that almost 800 energy educators and experts from well over 100 schools and many other organizations registered for this event.

Our presentation today will be divided into four segments: we will begin with an overview of Department of Energy efforts related to Energy Literacy and Energy 101; we will then discuss the model curricular framework for Energy 101; we will then present descriptions of related courses and course materials, and we will close the presentation portion of the webinar with a brief discussion of possible next steps.

At that point we will turn to Questions and Answers. Throughout the webinar you will be able to pose questions through the chat function which appears on your screen. We will not be using the raise your hand function or question function so please use the chat function for your questions. After the four formal presentations we will provide answers in chat to some of the frequently asked questions and I will pose others to panelists during this question and answer period. We do not expect to be able to answer all questions during the webinar, but will get back to the rest of you as soon as possible afterwards. We also hope you will respond to the survey that we will send out to registrants in the near future.

We will begin now with opening remarks by Dr. Michelle Fox, DOE's (Department of Energy's) Chief Strategist for Education and Workforce Development who previously was Vice President at the American Federation of Scientists where she headed the Federation's Learning Technologies Program. It is Michelle's vision that has guided our work over the past two years. Michelle, in turn, will introduce her colleague, Dr. Matthew Garcia, who provide additional background and discuss DOE's Energy Literacy Initiative. Michelle.

MICHELLE FOX: Thank you Jim. Hi, and welcome to today's webinar on energy 101. Thank you very much for joining.

I'd like to spend a few moments talking about why DOE is interested in leading an effort to create a nationally recognized Energy 101 framework for colleges and universities.

Energy 101 is part of a broader Energy Literacy effort that is vital to helping achieve national energy goals.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of very specific workforce training that our office conducts. This includes projects like solar panel installer training. But a broader approach is needed if we are to innovate, produce and move to a clean energy economy.

There is a lot of talk about clean energy, climate change and our "all of the above" energy strategy.

Through our energy Literacy efforts –and our systems-based Energy 101 framework, we're hoping to connect interdisciplinary concepts so that students can bridge science, engineering and economic and even policy concepts to help make more informed decisions about their own energy use.

Having a more energy literate citizenry has a lot of benefits including:

  • Economic development through energy savings and jobs for those helping us save energy
  • Improved competitiveness as we choose innovative technologies
  • Enhanced security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil
  • And protecting our health and safety by mitigating the impact of energy production and use.

But traditionally we have not been teaching and learning about energy in a systems-based approach. Our goal was to lead a national dialogue that would result in a new way to teach a basic Energy course.

At the same time, we created and made available an open-source online platform where the concept of holistic, integrated, critical thinking can be demonstrated and visualized. You will hear more on this platform, called NTER, later in the presentation. It will enable you to access the materials, simulations and new approaches we are discussing.

We have been working with Academic institutions to develop and begin implementing a new vision for energy education. The result we hope is a framework that is flexible enough for faculty to adapt and for students to find exciting and engaging.

The Energy 101 you will hear about next can help equip students with critical thinking skills and an integrated knowledge of basic energy principles. It can help position them to make informed and sustainable decisions about energy. Such an approach may also encourage students to pursue more STEM careers and work in the various energy industries and sectors.

Our work to initiate and lead the national dialogue around energy literacy and provide a platform to deliver curriculum is only a beginning. The real work of engaging and inspiring the future workforce so vital to our Nation begins in the classroom. We look forward to working with you to enhance our Energy 101 effort in the coming years as this approach is implemented in colleges and universities across the country.

I'll turn it over now to Matt Garcia to provide more background of this initiative. Matt

MATT GARCIA: So I think this slide (referencing slide number 4) is really helpful in exhibiting the current fundamental problem we have when we talk about energy literacy in the United States:

In a study conducted by the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation in 2002, adult participants were tested on their general energy knowledge, not technical or scientific in nature and only 12% passed a basic quiz on general energy topics.

What is even more alarming is that the participant's perception of their energy knowledge did not meet their actual knowledge with 75% of those taking part in the quiz believing they had a lot, or fair amount of energy knowledge.

This disconnect between actual and perceived energy knowledge sets up a precarious situation in which energy decisions are based on perceived and not actual knowledge.

Also, take note that while this study was conducted over 10 years ago, similar studies since have shown this same paradigm. Thus increasing the nation's energy literacy is an important goal of a number of the initiatives that our office coordinates, since energy literacy empowers people to make informed energy decisions.

Our two main initiatives that are in support of this goal are the Energy Literacy Fundamentals document and the Energy 101 course framework.

Both initiatives were designed to support the thriving communities of energy educators that have long since been aware of our nation's energy literacy challenges. The Energy 101 framework has its genesis in the Energy Literacy Fundamentals Document.

The Energy literacy fundamentals document was released in March of 2012 and some of you on the call today may have indeed helped with its creation. The document was an effort to define what it is to be energy literate by identifying Energy Fundamentals and core concepts that everyone could agree were important in the understanding of Energy at a fundamental level.

The peer review process which included an expansive and broad assortment of energy experts organizations energy educators and federal agencies identified 7 essential principles and 49 associated fundamental core concepts that were included in the final document.

The seven principles not only cover the scientific and technical aspects of energy, but also the economic, behavioral and societal aspects involved in energy. For those not already aware of the document, it can be downloaded at the Education and Workforce Development website, at the address below eere.energy.gov/education/energy_literacy.html.

As an example, here is one of the Energy Literacy Principles and its core concepts. In this example we see the Energy Literacy Principle number 5, Energy decisions are influenced by economic, political, environmental and social factors. This principle is supported by 7 fundamental core concepts.

The principles and fundamental concepts were intended and designed to be unpacked and applied for a broad variety of different learning audience and settings offering a universal framework upon which curricula can be based on without prescribing when, where or how content is to be delivered.

This brings us to the main topic of today's webinar, the energy 101 initiative and its utility in the higher education setting. The main goal of the Energy 101 initiative is to support the creation of an Energy 101 course framework for a multidisciplinary higher education undergraduate course. For teaching the fundamentals of energy using systems based approach that can be modified to meet the differing needs of the nation's universities and community colleges while still being universally recognized as a fundamentals course in the same context of other 101 or fundamental courses like biology, chemistry or physics 101.

We identified 6 components that could help us meet this goal which are highlighted here, and will also be topics of further discussion in the presentations that follow. These six components are:

  • The use of the Energy Literacy Principles as a starting point
  • The ability to individualize for specific student audience & setting
  • That it be the result of expert review and public comment
  • That it provide roadmaps for course adoption
  • That it Leverage National Training & Education Resource (NTER) and learning technology for course content
  • And that we also that we leverage Energy Literacy & Education Partnerships

Illustrative of our desire to leverage partnerships is the Energy 101 team members; The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the Environmental and Energy Studies Institute, Oak Ridge Associated Universities and the University of Maryland and Harford Community College.

We utilized the energy literacy document as a starting point in the discussion of what an Energy 101 should look like mainly because the literacy fundamentals represent a peer reviewed agreed upon set of principles that defined energy literacy.

The result of the energy 101 development process which will be talked about more extensively by our next speaker, Jim Turner was the energy 101 course framework. (The framework) 5 Units of unpacked fundamentals and concepts designed and modeled after the outline of an introductory, semester long course.

This is what the Energy 101 framework looks like unpacked further; with the 5 Units, composed of 1-3 sections each covering the 7 fundamental principles found in the Energy literacy document including 36 supporting core concepts that are included with each unit section.

One of the 6 components to the Energy 101 initiative is to create and deliver Energy 101 content utilizing educational learning technology and leveraging the National Training and Education Resource (NTER).

NTER is a free open source online cloud based training and education platform for the creation and delivery of engaging content that can capitalize on the latest in immersive learning technologies such as 3D simulations, and other forms of online multimedia.

Currently, it contains number examples of this in the form of energy workforce training content and courses. With the ability to create and share course content and course modules, NTER could serve as a digital community for future Energy 101 courses and content and together with the framework can help lower barriers to creating and sharing course content. Later on you'll hear about work towards the creation of an example of this energy 101 learning module concept.

If you'd like more information on NTER and its abilities, please visit the website at www.nterlearning.org

So again, the Energy 101 framework much like the energy literacy document are both initiatives to support ongoing efforts to define energy literacy and to be helpful in creating energy curricula serving as support lattices with sets of universally accepted fundamentals. So that when we ask the question, "What does it mean to be energy literate?" the answer we get back is relatable to all.

Ideally an Energy 101 would be taught at all the nation's colleges and universities and like in other 101's regardless of where a student takes an Energy 101 course the resulting knowledge gained would be a universal set of fundamentals and concepts.

The example I like to use to illustrate this point is Biology 101. Wherever you take a Biology 101, you can safely assume that the students have been exposed to basic biological concepts like cellular respiration or the cell cycle. This example highlights what the energy 101 framework and initiative hopes to facilitate, this defining of those universal fundamentals and core concepts.

So with that I will now turn it over to Jim Turner who will explain the development and teaching philosophy behind the Energy 101 framework.

JIM TURNER: Let's now turn the specifics of the Energy 101 story. APLU became familiar with Michelle's vision during our participation in the Energy Literacy project. We felt the goal of Energy 101 had to go beyond energy literacy to the ability to use that literacy in personal and other decisions. We agreed to develop a model curriculum or framework. It was agreed that the course should be interdisciplinary and taught both at community college and university levels. Since Michelle was interested in Energy 101 eventually becoming an Advanced Placement Course, we felt it was important to bring in Leigh Abts of the University of Maryland who had years of experience in developing an AP Introduction to Engineering Design concept which has drawn the participation by the College Board.

We also felt the need for the wisdom of Indira Nair, former Vice Provost at Carnegie Mellon University, who for a decade taught an Environment 101 course with similar goals to DOE's. Both agreed to help and participated in an informational session on May 25th 2011 which had participation from 32 universities. It took several months to identify and receive initial support for the project which formally got underway in March of 2012.

The steps our team took to arrive at a peer-reviewed curricular framework are listed on this slide. Both we and DOE worked to identify existing curricula and textbooks to look for commonalities and best practices. We mapped the 16 of these that were closest to what we envisioned against the Energy Literacy principles. In doing so, we understood that we were mapping apples and an orange. The Energy Literacy Document describes what an adult needs to know about energy. The courses are aimed at educating college freshmen and assume relatively little understanding of energy. We found the core knowledge of the courses to be surprisingly similar, and we found more overlap with the Energy Literacy Document than we had expected. It was clear that all of the principles that appeared in half or more of the courses should be in the model curriculum and that the courses contained a handful more principles were essential to an 18 year old's ability to understand energy global and personal energy production and to use well enough to make intelligent decisions. We then went through the series of reviews described on the slide and at each stage received helpful comments that we incorporated to make the final product more robust. The last point is absolutely correct that the final course outline is greatly improved by this process.

As Matt as mentioned, the course we envision is simpler than the Energy Literacy document and divides naturally into five parts. Introduction to Energy is an overview of the semester, the course methodology, and an articulation of the practical skills to be developed over the semester. By the end of the unit, the students should have a glimpse of how pervasive energy is in all aspects of their lives and that both personal and larger scale energy decisions have real consequences at home and abroad. Energy Basics introduces the scientific principles that govern energy. Energy Sources introduces the students to the characteristics of the various types of energy. How Energy is Used brings in technology and applications. Energy policy and decision-making brings in social science, politics, environmental policy and a variety of other factors.

But this core information is only half the story. The intent of Energy 101 is not to have a class that can recite energy facts, but a class that understands the importance of those facts, how to find them, and how to apply them to problem-solving. Our goal also was to use 21st century teaching methods and tools leading to both academic success and workforce relevance. It was clear that students had to emerge with critical thinking skills and a project-based course similar to the one that Leigh Abts will describe was the way to go. Therefore, with the assistance of the National Science Foundation, we added development of sample courses at the university and community college level to the curriculum and module development we had promised to DOE.

At this point, Leigh Abts will describe the course he currently is teaching that implements the Curricular Framework. Following his presentation, he will introduce Tammie Ibearwitz from Harford Community College and Stephanie Moore from the University of Virginia.

LEIGH ABTS: Thank you Jim, thank you, Michelle and thank you, Matt. As you know this has been a very collaborative effort with people from around the country to create the pilot course at the University of Maryland and with our sister institution at Hartford Community College. One of the issues that we initially had to deal with was how do you take the energy 101 curricula framework with the energy literacy fundamentals and the core concepts and pull them into a course that was general undergrad curriculum course.

What we did was we looked at the underlying philosophies about the energy 101. Which is basically? We wanted the students to not only have the fundamental knowledge of the energy principals, but how to develop critical thinking skills to make informed decisions across a whole range of content knowledge; whether it is energy production or energy use or sustainable development or other issues that crosses a broad range of knowledge. What we thought was in context of what we have at University of Maryland I series courses. These courses are intended to spark the students imaginations to inspire their intellect to inspire and challenge them to meet new challenges to wrestle with the big questions and to bring in knowledge from across disciplines. So we thought the to philosophies came together and what we did was create a course called Designing a Sustainable World.

Designing a Sustainable World basically is a series of about thirty lectures that are tied to the unit level of a fundamental curriculum. They are tied to the topics like the formal laws governing energy or interduction to units or down to the actual associated core concepts of the energy literacy fundamentals. The course its self wraps both the curriculum and core fundamentals into a way that the students can understand the content but more importantly that you will see in a few moments we use the design process for them to actually tie their content knowledge into a problem solving process so they can address real issues. What we have done is we have taken a well known application or model called understanding by design developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. We have developed for each lesson plan what we call the essential questions. These are actually the essence of the issue that you are trying to address at each of the classes. For example how is design different from the scientific method? Many of the students that come into our course understand the scientific method but maybe not the design process. We talk about research and why is that important when you are faced with understanding the energy or sustainability issue and why you would need to do research and how you would conduct your research. We talk about when you solve problems especially when you apply the design process it is iterative and often you will fail in some of your initial solutions but you will learn from your failures.

We try to do that as you learn these basic concepts through the core fundamental how you can apply these concepts in real world applications. Basically what we have done is taken the frame work which some collogues around the country have developed. We took the DOE developed Energy literacy fundamentals and their associated core concepts and mapped them to each of the lesson plans in the course. At the initial start of each lecture we actually tell the students what the essential question what their depths of understanding they are going to learn in that particular lecture and what it ties back to the energy literacy principles. That hopefully when they leave that classroom today they will actually have some informed knowledge of the principles themselves.

What we decided though was having content knowledge and not being able to apply it was only half of the intent of the course so what we decided on was based on our work that we ate doing engineering AP design. We thought that the engineering design process or the design process is actually a good way to allow the students to practice and apply their knowledge and process of design which is problem solving it is teamwork it is collaboration it modeling its creative thinking. If you think about design it is one of those 21 century skills that everyone talks about and it allows you to apply these skills in a context. What we have done hers is said it is great that these students do these projects but how are we going to capture these projects in a way that basically aligning the literacy principles and force change of reasoning of what the students are doing in class and what they are learning and how do we inform ourselves through the learning process.

We decided to use an electronic portfolio which has been developed in a way that is free to everyone and anyone can use it. It's based around the engineering design process. What we is basically we teach the content for each one of the energy fundamentals we talk through the students applications fundamentals in context of the design process.

For example, a student would we are actually going to cite student work. This student is a freshman she is in letters in science and she is premed. She is trying to develop a process to use excess radiation as an energy source. The first thing she did was research the problem. You have to research and look at what people have done before. Then enter that into the electronic portfolio. One of the things that we realized is that each student learns and applies their knowledge differently. We wanted to give them different tool sets so they can apply their knowledge in a way that is personal to them. For example, we talk about mind mapping, which is a visual way for students to brain storm. They can pictorially draw out their ideas. It is like doodling, they can doodle their ideas like a brainstorming process.

For example, one student has brainstormed the different energy sources in a gym and how can you more effectively use those energy sources. Another student has taken the mind mapping and what we talk about lifecycle analysis they have actually used it to map out the life cycle of their designs.

We have also taught students how to use word clouds. Throughout the course they have homework assignments in their e portfolios so they create these documents and we tough them to take these documents and pick out the words that and phrases that pop up the most and a word cloud is a weighted list of the information they are presenting. As you can see you can see a senior in civil engineering who is designing a solar disinfection for third world contaminated water came up with a mind map that represented his work. Another student that is developing rain gardens for the University of Maryland campus came up with his word cloud. You can see that each of the students is representing their knowledge in a way that is personal to them.

As they do their design projects they create their own pictorials or figures of how their designs have evolved. Now remember we are only 70% through the class now so we are still in the mix of offering this so this particular student who wanted to reinvent the toilet for third world countries. You can see how her design has evolved over the last six or seven weeks. And again this is freshman with letters in science. She is basically an arts and science major so she is actually using her science principles she is using in the course and applying it something is real to her.

So what other students for example are looking at energy from flight or how to get a third world sterilization unit using solar cells. And in the process they are all defining the problem and they are developing their design concepts and also looking design viabilities as illustrated in this slide by the various projects show. As they go through this process they are developing their depth of understanding of their content. They are putting it in an e portfolio and they are developing a record of their over time of their projects which they own and which is theirs. They can show it to others as they leave this course it now becomes part of their CDs in a sense. This is their portfolio, they learn how to use portfolios.

As students also pull their knowledge together they realize that we all live in a system. The designs or developed ideas are all part of a system part of a systems thinking. In this case a student really looked at the use of light on campus and came up with a plan on how to better control the lighting systems in the Universities of Maryland buildings. Through different types of occupancy sensor light timer, led lighting in a sense they are learning how to think in systems you know We do not live in our island ourselves everything is part of a system so students start thinking in terms of systems.

The other thing that students learn about is that knowledge is collective across disciplines. So they are formed into teams. The teams look at a problem. For example, this particular team of three students are looking at how can you use energy in a more effective way for the fermentation process. So they looked at solar energy, geothermal energy they decide that their design would be based on geothermal energy so using again a mind map they created a control system using the basic energy fundamental that they learned in this course because they are agricultural and food science majors. And applying it to something they would create in a food processing plant. As we have brought this together for the students basically what we are doing is including this as a campus wide initiative where sustainability does not happen by chance in a sense being an engineer it must be engineering. This course and the student work will be part of the national and university wide sustainability dates. The students projects will be highlighted in a presentation so they will have opportunities where there are projects to be shown to experts from not only the university of Maryland but from across the country. And finally what we would like to talk about.

We basically have begun to work with a number of other organizations just to give you some ideas how to apply this in your own domain. We are working with Wheaton High School to map the process to the common core standards for math practice and the next generation science standards we are working on a program for an online course for returning veterans. So that they might they can learn and apply their math they can learn and apply it to real world energy and sustainability application. You will hear in a few moments from Hartford Community College. Where they are now taking this course and is now transferable to College Park. To offer it to communities college students and we will here from Stephanie Moore who is working with us at the University of Virginia to see how we might create some online objects that are align this process.

Like I said at the beginning this is an effort of multiple group multiple organizations and they all deserve credit because this is not just one person doing this is a team of people coming together to help students.

What I would like to do now is hand it over remotely to Tammie Ibearwitz. She is a associate professor at Hartford Community college in Bel Air Maryland. She teaches course in Human Ecology and biology and she serves as chair for the campus sustainability committee.

TAMMIE IBEARWITZ: Please bear with us. There we go. Thanks for joining us today. I am excited to be a part of this national effort. My part in today's webinar is to share with you a couple things that I have been working on to get this course approved at Hartford community college. So I would like to share with you one how I created the course modeled from the energy literacy principles as well as the energy 101 curricula framework, two the approval process that I experienced here at Hartford Community college to attain an general education statues specific to my campus specific guidelines, three how the course transfers in the Maryland system. And finally four how the just the course description and the learning objectives that I designed and were approved for the course. To begging with the course is title introduction to energy and sustainability. It was put into a physical science course code. With a code of SCI 109. It will be offered for the first time in fall of 2013. The course learning objective were written to align with the energy literacy principals and the course design and delivery will follow the energy 101 curricular framework and will involve a series of class project and mini labs to explore the concepts of energy science. Field trips here on campus to view what we have here. We have a lot of green design. We have solar power, wind power, geothermal, as well as look at some of the other energy sources in the region. Also look around at the global perspective of the energy sources compared to the United States. Then finally they will come up with their own sustainability plans and implement a lot of the work that they have work on with energy science. Either from school, or work or home or a combination of all of those.

The process for us to get approved. Every college has their own curricular framework that you have to work from to get a course approved. Every college has general education requirement that each student must achieve before they graduate. So they fit it into arts and humanities math, behavior social science. The course that I designed potentially fit into two categories as a general education interdisciplinary and emerging issues or as a general science, general education science. I requested and was approve by the committee for a general science.

I want to emphasize energy science in the course and it is used to shape our decisions about our energy choices and to learn about our policies and their social impact although there it is also an emerging issue. I felt within the science category and my curriculum support group supported it. I think it aligns best with energy literacy principles and the energy 101 curriculum framework. Many students have to take more general science course so I also thought that would generate more student interest in the science of energy.

Once it was approved as a general science course it then is approved for transferability to all Maryland transfer institutions. It now transfers all across Maryland to any student that transfers. They will be transferring as a general science to meet that requirement. The key feature to get it approved on our campus was to get the university of Maryland approve our course as an equivalent transfer to the University of Maryland course. They were designed together to make that happen so that was a big key feature to set precedence. Now that it is approved here at Harford community college other community college across the state can now use it as an equivalent course that is already on the books for transfer to other institutions.

That is a big thing when students take courses especially at a community college that it transfers to meet requirements at other schools. This is a great start.

The next slide shows the course description. I thought I would share with you just how the course description was written to align with the energy literacy principles. Then the slide after this is showing you the course learning objectives. For my campus the learning objectives have to be written in a certain format and this is the format that is written and these were devised to be directly from the energy literacy principles and then will be applied to the course through the energy 101 curricular framework.

With that I would like to move on to our next speaker thank you for all of your time.

At this time I would like to move on to Stephanie Moore from University of Virginia remotely.

STEPHANIE MOORE: Alright thank you, Leigh.

At the University of Virginia I am the Director of Engineering Instructional Design and I also I also teach STS (Science Technology and Society) classes in our engineering and society department. Including one right now on sustainability where we are integrating systems thinking and design very much along the same lines in which has been talking about. In addition do a lot of work in my role as director of instructional design and helping our school with a lot of initiatives related to online learning. We do a lot of online graduate and undergraduate programs. I have a lot of the background in online learning and evidence base pate got.

Part of my role in this project was starting to work with Leigh on how we think about the online space and different online capabilities in relation to energy 101 and leverage some of those ideas to help make the components of an energy 101 course that are tied to these energy literacy standards much more broadly available specifically by using the NTER platform which Matt talked about earlier as well.

What I wanted to talk about today was I have been working with a team here at UVA of content experts and multi-media developers to start designers some online modules or what I would call learning objects that are tied to the energy 101 course. So that once we get those on the NTER platform somebody could use a component of this course or a piece or one explanation or an animation or an activity from the course in addition to trying to pull the full course as well.

This first set that we are focused on now is actually focused on heat transfer. We walk through the three core ideas for heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation and then that module is then capped with some systems design instructions and piece on systems data analysis. Part of what I have been doing is leading the team design these modules based on evidence based approaches to how we develop effective online multi-media learning materials and make the online materials interactive. Either for someone taking this module on their own or for a teacher or instructor who uses a module in their class and can use some of the activities in group based ideas along with that as well.

Here I have just laid out conceptionally the different pieces that are going into those module designs. On this first one it is just this one is based on thermo-energy basics. We break it down into the three basic confines of conduction convection and radiation. There is some explicit instruction. I am meaning we are going to tell you these ideas are. The way that those are designed we have narrated images and animation which is in line with evidence based approach. As to how to design this based on evidence from me and from others.

In addition there are some periodic quizzes on basic concepts. We know this actually helps improve student learning. Especially in asyncronace online modules.

In addition what Leigh was really focusing on was student being able to understand the basic concepts but we really want to move them into application specifically application through design. Integrated into these modules are individual and group activities that are focused on application in some cases they are very basic. Walk around your house and identify examples of conduction or convections and describe that. Then they can compare their answers to other answers. Or we may give them as simple design activity to start with and they can compare their design solution to an existing design solution out there and by the time we get into the system we get more complex systems activities where they have a design app.

In addition tying back to some of the concepts we talked about before. These modules have features like multiple examples. Which is something from research that we know facilitates understanding of the concept and transfer that helps people be able to take what they understand from one example or concept and apply it in a different area. We have built in multiple examples that both helps with understanding and helps with a diverse set of learners so that facilitates the universal design of learning component and then finally part of what you will see in the next set screen that we will show you relates to accessibility. That for us accessibility is an ingoing consideration that is designed into these from the start it is not something that we treat as an add on later.

Like I said the systems example. We give them a systems example where they see these different types of heat transfers in action. Maybe some systems where there is more than one at play and understanding the relationship between these. In addition we give them a lot of examples where they are seeing examples of the different types of heat transfer within a system that they are familiar with like a home or we use the water shed house for Maryland as example decisions that go into insulation or windows. Starting with some basic examples and then scaffling it up for more advanced examples that have more complexity. Again they have to ado a systems design activity. They are provided data and they have to interet that data and make some decisions based on that data.

For a quick example I have captured some screen shot of the story board for one of these that we have started with again this is with thermo-energy. Just our core graphic to help us capture multiple ideas and how we are mapping that out there. The emphasis is on trying to anchor the instruction in visuals get word off the screen and get more visuals and animations and even activities and simulation in front of them and offload words to voice or to narration.

What you see there on the right is a screen shot it is a prototype of one of the pieces that we have it is a different one. You cannot see it in motion here because it is just a screen shot. It capture those dots are actually molecules that are moving around. As the molecules are moving around the temperature on the thermometer is going up. Then there is narration that accompanying this. The text that you see below is just closed captioning for accessibility standards but this is just one example of the types of modules that we are working to put together here but once we are done we will work on the NTER platform so they are made much more available for people to be able to integrate individual modules that are tied to energy 101 and based on these standards.LeighI think back to you.

Thank you, Stephanie

JIM TURNER:This is Jim Turner. We now turn to Ellen Vaughan of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute who will discuss possible next steps for Energy 101. But before Ellen speaks I want to answer two questions that we should have been clearer on APLU is the Associate of Public Land-Grant University. Which is the presidential organization for all of the large research universities in the country. We have over two hundred members and the water shed house which Stephanie just mentioned was the winner of the solar decathlon and what we are using is just a visual representation of the project which is part of the competition.

ELLEN VAUGHN: Thanks Jim and good afternoon everyone. the environmental and energy study institute has the privilege of working with the energy 101 project team. Those who you have heard from today. We think it important to understand basic energy principles in order to understand appreciate sustainable energy. And to apply that knowledge when making basic decisions about energy use. Weather is for themselves or for policy decisions for society as a whole. Our initial target audience was colleges and university faculty, student and administrators. It is really just one component of the potential audience. Who we would like to have understand these basic energy principles. This is our target audience and we do want to continue reaching out to these audiences after this webinar to let other know about the curriculum and that a university course and a college course have been develop to implement the teaching of energy principles for all student and also to developed students critical thinking skills. This is an important project that we have been delighted to be a part of it. The essential next step is to promote courses that use the energy 101 curriculum framework. We will be looking for opportunities to develop additional curricula and then to help students and to help schools who want to develop courses. We would also suggest that energy 101 participants and champions can join us in this effort. Start or join a discussion on NTER on the NTER forum about the energy 101 course, text books modules and other topics. Please tell your friends, educators or others about energy 101.

Our project team is delighted that we will be working with some key stake holder groups such as Second Nature and schools who have signed on to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment to assess their interest in what they would need to move forward in developing energy 101 courses.

Really the essential question at this webinar is are you thinking about proposing or developing and energy 101 course? Would you like to learn more about the framework the two courses that you heard about today? Would you give us feedback?

We invite you to contact us and let us know your thoughts. We have been working with Bentley University to follow up on this as well. Bentley University has designed a survey that we hope some of our key partners can send out to assess your interest in moving forward. Thank you.

MATT GARCIA: I will take this real quick. We wanted to just reiterate that one of the main way that was talked about today was about helping out with energy 101 is to develop your own course content on NTER and share it. Like content that Stephanie described a little while back. Also there are a couple of funding opportunities available for this type of utility of NTER energy content these two on the bottom are the trader adjustment and assistance community college career training initiative and the creative engineering for accelerator renewable energy development are geared towards. The tax branch is ongoing and the solar geared one is coming up for application.

JIM TURNER: Thank you Ellen and Matt. In summary I would be remiss if I didn't mention Karen Mckering who has been our associate energy director at the Associate of Public Land-Grant University and has been an integral part of our team, and well of over 100 people at all of our organizations plus our advisors and commenter's who were all necessary to put together what you see today.

The slide before you returns you to where we were at the started this webinar. As you look through the original project scope that Matt outlined earlier you will see that we not only created the model course framework but we are demonstrating how this works at the University and community college level through Leigh and Tammie's courses. Ellen has described our preliminary speaking where we can head from hear. We now would like to turn what has been a monolog into a dialog on to how to mesh energy with standard and tools and practice of the emerging 21 century learning environment.

This slide returns to where we started. As you look through the original project scope once again you will see we not only have created the course framework but are demonstrating how it works at the university and community college level. We also have done preliminary thinking on where to head from here. We now want to turn our monolog into a dialog on how to mesh energy literacy with the standards, tools and practices of the emerging 21st century learning environment. We will now try to answer your questions and look forward to your comments.