Skyline College’s Center for Sustainable Construction will be taking a “mobile classroom” (specially equipped vehicle) on the road this year to deliver a college-level, “Green” Construction Basics course to students on their high school campus. The program is designed to be a “bridge” for students in high school to get exposure to college faculty, curriculum, and culture. Students will receive both high school and college credit for the two-semester program. Our high school partners for the 2015-2016 pilot program include Capuchino and Mills High School.
Assistant Professor Bruce Greenstein is coordinating the program as well as teaching the courses. “It is my hope this program will garner interest in Skyline College’s plethora of amazing program offerings or an interest in continuing education on some level. Integrating a young demographic into the emerging green sector is essential to the development and growth of a robust workforce to meet the challenging climate, energy, and water challenges in our near future.”
This program was made possible through the efforts and dedication of Skyline College’s Center for Workforce Development. Through support and collaboration with Deputy Sector Navigator, Catherine Ayers – a DSN sub-grant was awarded in April 2015 from Foothill/DeAnza CCD to develop, support, and execute the program.
The grant also supported our third annual High School Summer Energy Camp, another innovative “bridge” project to interest and inspire students to attend college, as well as educate youth on energy, environment, and science. The seven-day camp this year had nine students who came to learn about energy efficiency, solar and creating videos that illustrated their point of view on the importance of reducing energy consumption, creating more comfortable and less energy-using homes and using solar as a cleaner, greener energy source.
As with last year, the camp blended technical knowledge on environmental subjects with film making best practices. The students got to apply what they learned to story telling using video production techniques. They were asked to produce two videos during the seven-day camp. And, once again, the camp culminated in an awards ceremony where judges gave feedback on the six videos that were created by three teams of students. This year, judges agreed that the video quality was the best ever. The final videos are uploaded to the dedicated YouTube channel.
The Green Energy Camp staff included: Celia Canfield, camp producer and marketing instructor, Bruce Greenstein and Joan Connolly as subject matter experts on energy efficiency and solar, Rita Gulli as the coordinator for the camp, Anasanique Fountain as the lead videographer and she was assisted by two Skyline College film students, David Oriqat and Nicole Smith.
Article by Bruce Greenstein
