Training and Professional Development
Teachers are the key to the success of the NEED program. NEED teachers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S. territories reach more than four million students each year in their local schools, and many more through outreach programs. Providing teachers with innovative training programs and opportunities to increase their own energy knowledge is a major objective of the NEED program.
Training is offered at local, state, regional and national levels. During the school year, NEED coordinators, lead teachers, and student leaders facilitate workshops for teachers, students, parents, and community members that may range from a few hours to several days. At these workshops, attendees receive an introduction to the NEED curriculum. Additional training for special topics like solar, hydrogen, wind, energy on public lands, or energy management is available in many areas of the NEED network. NEED specializes in creating a first-class training experience, which is consistently scored by participants as one of the best professional development experiences available.
In the summer, the National Energy Conferences for Educators give teachers and energy professionals the opportunity to meet other educators from across the country, design and develop NEED units for their classrooms, increase their energy knowledge, and earn graduate credit. They participate in NEED activities and field trips to energy sites such as nuclear power plants, coalmines, offshore oil production facilities, solar energy facilities, hydroelectric dams, and energy efficiency projects.
In the summer of 2006, approximately 600 educators from across the country attended National Energy Conferences in Colorado, Massachusetts, Washington, New York, Texas, and California. NEED sponsors and partners provide sponsorships for teachers, and they participate as speakers and field trip guides. Some NEED states also sponsor summer energy camps for kids, spring break day camps, and overnight energy weekends. Many NEED schools work with scout troops and community youth groups to help them gain energy-related merit badges and community service hours.
NEED Energy Workshop Opportunities are listed on the NEED Calendar here: NEED Calendar
Read more about this topic: National Energy Education Development Project
Famous quotes containing the words training, professional and/or development:
“The Führer is always quite cheerful, cheerful with all his heart, when he is having tea with his friends during the night, or when he is training his dogs!”
—Martin Bormann (1900–1945)
“The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)
“The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)