Mission Statement
The Agricultural Sustainable Energy Education Network (ASEEN) is a three year long project (2013-2015), sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture, to promote sustainable energy education in K-12 schools. The program is managed from the Department of Agricultural Sciences and Engineering Technology at Sam Houston State University.
The three outreach services provided by ASEEN are:
(1) STEM and sustainable energy education workshops held at high schools,
(2) an annual Teacher Professional Development Summer Workshop on renewable energy, and
(3) the development of a renewable energy curriculum consisting of lessons and assessments.
Vision Statement
Improving energy efficiency and expanding sources of renewable energy are currently considered national and global priorities. The concept of sustainable energy is of worldwide importance with Europe taking the lead in its application to agricultural lands. The United States continues to struggle with meeting the tremendous energy appetite of its citizens while attempting to meet global environmental standards. Unfortunately, educational institutions in the U.S. have not kept pace with the need to produce the workforce necessary to meet the industry demands of existing technologies or the intellectual capital to further refine that technology into commercialization of more innovative and applicable inventions. Agricultural applications of sustainable energy are particularly lacking.
The purpose of the ASEEN project is the creation of a multi-faceted model involving a secondary and post-secondary education pipeline that enables workforce growth in the sustainable energy sector while expanding the capacity of this university to prepare state-of-the-art technical knowledge and experience for those Agricultural Sciences students pursuing a degree. Not to mention the opportunity to acquire state-of-the-art, industry-driven technical knowledge while pursuing a Baccalaureate. SHSU is one of the oldest and largest in the country with some 1,200 majors, so the addition of sustainable energy courses, or even a related major, is bound to occur. The project will also produce a training curriculum for Texas high school teachers that will enhance their students’ understanding of energy concepts while encouraging Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) comprehension.
SHSU and community college students will create a community of interest via student organizations that can distribute career information, schedule field trips for energy demonstrations, and other activities meant to promote a peer to peer Baccalaureate degree pathway. The Sustainable Energy Mobile Laboratory (SEML, depicted above) will schedule visits across Texas in order to offer experiential learning opportunities in sustainable energy and STEM concepts. Most of the visits will be to rural and non-metropolitan school districts with affiliated community college systems. The objective will be to spark interest for those students struggling with STEM understanding yet aspiring to pursue a post-secondary education.