Hands-on projects inspire kids, newspaper articles catch parents’ attention

Sierra College Workforce Development and Center for Applied Competitive Technologies (CACT) is inspiring young people to consider careers in product design, engineering, technology and manufacturing by offering hands-on projects at schools in Placer and Nevada counties.

After a recent build in Grass Valley, the Tech-Explorer catapult project was featured in the Union newspaper. Kids catapult into learning College program eyes local work force

To spread the word, Sierra College has used press releases describing the goals of the program:

For Immediate Release December 16, 2008 #62

Contact: Sue Michaels/Diane Wright, Sierra College Marketing/Public Relations 916-660.7272, 916-630-4535(fax) smichaels@sierracollege.edu

Lincoln High School students apply math skills to building catapults

Sierra College STEM grant introduces education path to highly-paid, technical careers

ROCKLIN -Students in teacher Ellen Byron’s Honors Algebra II and Pre-Calculus classes will measure, cut and manipulate metal on industrial power tools to manufacture parts and build catapults from 10:45AM to 3PM on Wednesday, Dec. 17 at Lincoln High School located at 790 J St. in Lincoln, CA. Learn about the project at: http://www.sierracollegetraining.com/techexp_program.php

A former Industrial Engineer, Byron is excited about offering this project. “Building the catapult will give students a glimpse into ‘What can we do with the math we learn?’” said Byron. “In careers like engineering, it is so exciting to think of a concept and then turn it into reality. Many of these students are so focused on the academics that they don’t realize all the great career choices that math and science can provide. Through this project, I hope some sparks will fly in their minds and open their imaginations to many technical career choices.”

According to Sandra Scott, Director of Workforce Development for Sierra College, the hands-on Tech-Explorer catapult project engages students and makes academic studies more relevant. “Project-based learning allows students to apply what they are learning in the classroom to real skills used in the workplace,” said Scott. “This project introduces students to local, highly paid in-demand careers such as technicians, product designers and engineers.”

Sierra College won a Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) grant from the California Community College Chancellor’s office to bring short-term, turn-key applied academic projects that meet State of California secondary education standards into middle and high school classes.

STEM careers are in demand reports Nicholas Terrell for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in STEM Occupations http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/spring/art04.pdf. The report shows that “STEM workers earned about 70 percent more than the national average in 2005, accord­ing to BLS” and the average wage for STEM occupations in 2005 was $64,560 compared to $37,870 for all occupations. (pg. 29 BLS Occupational Outlook Quarterly Spring 2007)

The BLS recommends: “Prepa­ration should begin in high school, with coursework and extracurricular activities focusing on honing problem-solving skills. … Students interested in a STEM career should get started in high school by taking as much math and science as they can. Even those who struggle in these subjects during school can succeed on the job; with persever­ance, many people who may have had difficulty with early math or science classes can later thrive in a STEM career.” (pg. 30 BLS)

The mission of the Workforce Development Division is to deliver flexible learning opportunities that produce change. For more information, go to www.sierracollegetraining.com or contact Sandra Scott, Sierra College Workforce Development at (916) 781-6244.

Color Trends

I have been blessed to have worked with wonderful designers who take the text I write and turn it into eye catching print materials that reinforce the brand.

To learn more about color, you might want to check out pantone.com. You’ll find Pantone’s Top 5 trend palettes.

It is also fun to look at the PANTONE fashion COLOR REPORT SPRING 2009. I’m excited about fuchsia red as you might expect. At the end of the report, designers tell their “must haves” for the upcoming season.

Technology Meltdown Rant

Today, I had a technology meltdown.

My email didn’t work. Thank goodness I can rely of Valley IT Support (www.valleyitsupport.com). I sent an email via my website at 6:17 am and had a reply by 6:23am setting a time to resolve this problem.

Then my phone dropped off a client in the middle of a conference call. I called the telephone company and the voice mail said that they were really busy and I should go online. I did and was lead through a series of menus until I got instructions on how to go out to my box, unscrew the lid and test my wires. I gallantly followed the instructions and unearthed my inner engineer hiding behind the marketing gal. But, since the problem of dropped calls was intermittent, my tests didn’t reveal anything. So I had to call the phone company and wait until I could request a technician.

I couldn’t upload changes to a client’s web site in the usual manner due to some technical difficulty. At I-Tul (www.I-Tul.com) the tech experts answer the phone and quickly offer alternatives to work around the issue. So, this was resolved quickly too.

The final straw was my calculator. I found “new” batteries that weren’t new enough to make it work and ended up doing calculations longhand. It’s good to know I can still do it.

This evening my step-mother said she finally got her email fixed. I had sent messages to the customer support requesting assistance for her. They had replied to her via email even though her problem was that she couldn’t access her email. That’s why I had submitted the service request for her. Is someone actually reading the service requests or is everything automated?

Today’s lessons:

  • Having a responsive IT expert is priceless.
  • Web sites are great to help customers help themselves and email is a wonderful tool but if those don’t work, customers need to be able to reach a real person.

Hopefully I’ll have time to actually do some marketing tomorrow since I went on a technology rant today.