Bridging the gap between industry and academia

As cloud technologies continue to help organizations transform at a rapid pace, employees with the necessary cloud skills are in high demand. According to LinkedIn data, cloud computing is the number one hard skill companies need most.

AWS Academy provides higher education institutions with a free, ready-to-teach cloud computing curriculum that prepares students to pursue industry-recognized certifications and in-demand cloud jobs. Our curriculum helps educators stay at the forefront of AWS Cloud innovation so that they can equip students with the skills they need to get hired in one of the fastest-growing industries.

AeroEducate is a program created by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in cooperation with North Carolina State University and in partnership with other companies and organizations from across the country and around the world.

At its core, AeroEducate is based on a curated series of rigorously vetted STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) activities and an innovative badging system. Students who participate in AeroEducate will explore and develop their interests in a wide variety of STEM-related subjects, using the excitement of aviation not only as the framework, but as a source of inspiration. By working through these activities, students will be able to track their progress — and even pick up some friendly bragging rights — by earning badges that will be nationally recognized by EAA and our partners.

AeroEducate provides teachers, parents, EAA chapters and other youth leaders a toolbox to help inspire future generations of aviators, engineers, mechanics, astronauts, and more by igniting their passion for aviation.

In this lesson students define macro- and micronutrients and describe the nutritional importance of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus to plants.  They also identify the meaning of the three numbers on a bag of fertilizer.

Students are introduced to biofuels, biological engineers, algae and how they grow (photosynthesis), and what parts of algae can be used for biofuel (biomass from oils, starches, cell wall sugars). Through this lesson, plants—and specifically algae—are presented as an energy solution. Students learn that breaking apart algal cell walls enables access to oil, starch, and cell wall sugars for biofuel production. Students compare/contrast biofuels and fossil fuels. They learn about the field of biological engineering, including what biological engineers do. A 20-slide PowerPoint® presentation is provided that supports students taking notes in the Cornell format. Short pre- and post-quizzes are provided. This lesson prepares students to conduct the associated activity in which they make and then eat edible algal cell models.

Students learn about linear programming (also called linear optimization) to solve engineering design problems. As they work through a word problem as a class, they learn about the ideas of constraints, feasibility and optimization related to graphing linear equalities. Then they apply this information to solve two practice engineering design problems related to optimizing materials and cost by graphing inequalities, determining coordinates and equations from their graphs, and solving their equations. It is suggested that students conduct the associated activity, Optimizing Pencils in a Tray, before this lesson, although either order is acceptable.

Students define and classify alloys as mixtures, while comparing and contrasting the properties of alloys to those of pure substances. Students learn that engineers investigate the structures and properties of alloys for biomedical and transportation applications. Pre- and post-assessment handouts are provided.

This set of anatomy videos illustrating parts of the human body was created under a Round Eleven Mini-Grant for Ancillary Materials Creation.

Topics include:

Axial Skeleton
Appendicular Skeleton
Muscles
Nervous System
Anatomy of the Senses

How can you tell if harmful bacteria are in your food or water that might make you sick? What you eat or drink can be contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites and toxins—pathogens that can be harmful or even fatal. Students learn which contaminants have the greatest health risks and how they enter the food supply. While food supply contaminants can be identified from cultures grown in labs, bioengineers are creating technologies to make the detection of contaminated food quicker, easier and more effective.

Design, produce and test a marine boat hull that will: (1) travel faster than any other student-designed boat hull without a payload, (2) hold the heaviest payload without capsizing, (3) travel faster than any other student-designed boat hull with a standard payload, and (4) deliver the greatest net profit in simulated payload-to-power tradeoff races.

Associated lessons plans are also available for download and adaptation in the Guttman Community College OER collection in CUNY Academic Works.

Students build their own satellite using household materials. Through the process, they learn about satellites and their functions.

Students learn about atoms and their structure (protons, electrons, neutrons) — the building blocks of matter. They see how scientific discoveries about atoms and molecules influence new technologies developed by engineers.

Faculty who are new to OER may experience difficulty finding an open textbook or other openly licensed materials to adopt for their courses. Searching on your own is time consuming and the choices can be overwhelming. We will hear from a college librarian who helps faculty find and adopt high quality OER to match their course outcomes and the creators of the award winning OER Commons, a freely accessible online library that allows teachers and others to search and discover open educational resources (OER) and other freely available instructional materials.

Below are globally focused projects, written by career and technical education (CTE) educators and aligned to the Common Core by ELA, math, and science educators, can be used as standalone projects in one CTE classroom or can be combined by multiple CTE educators in a building. These projects are based around four themes (Food Security, Clean Energy: Solar or Wind, Women's Health, and Cybersecurity) and contain the lesson plans, assessment information, and auxiliary materials an educator needs for implementation.

High-Quality and Relevant Professional Learning, Lesson Plans, and Events for California’s Modern Educator

This training module covers Copyright and Fair Use guidelines for Educators including a number of resources, tips, and links. 

Support for High School Culinary Arts Teachers and Guidance Counselors
We know you’re as committed as we are to helping students learn and succeed—and we’d like to help you. Here are some education resources from the CIA to spark a passion in your students for culinary arts and pursuing careers in the food industry.

Whether for use in the classroom or simply for handing out to interested students, these materials are perfect for the aspiring young chef or food professional in your school.

Please share, and let your students know about the CIA. The knowledge and skills they’ll gain here—along with the food-focused, full collegiate experience they’ll enjoy—will prepare them for an amazing life of food. And that CIA degree they’ll carry with them into the workforce is the most respected education credential in the business.

Students learn how the process of soil solarization is used to pasteurize agricultural fields before planting crops. Soil solarization is a pest control technique in agriculture that uses the sun’s radiation to heat the soil and eliminate unwanted pests that could harm the crops. The approach is compared to other pest control methods such as fumigation and herbicide application, highlighting the respective benefits and drawbacks. In preparation for the associated hands-on activity on soil biosolarization, students learn how changing the variables involved in the solarizing process (such as the tarp material, soil water content and addition of organic matter) impacts the technique’s effectiveness. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post-quiz is provided.

In this lesson, students learn that sound is energy and has the ability to do work. Students discover that sound is produced by a vibration and they observe soundwaves and how they travel through mediums. They understand that sound can be absorbed, reflected or transmitted. Through associated activities, videos and a PowerPoint presentation led by the teacher, students further their exploration of sound through discussions in order to build background knowledge.