Expanding Educational Opportunities for Secondary and Post-Secondary Educators and Students in the Technology and Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Labor market studies of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or Drones industry indicate that UAS is now a significant driver of job and economic growth in many regions across the nation. The UAS industry is well established in the San Diego region thanks to major employers in the industry as well as numerous other small to medium sized businesses. The outlook in the region is growing as the use of UAS across a variety of disciplines is increasing. Yet despite the high demand in the market, the skills gap is rising leaving drone service providers and related organizations scrambling to fill drone-related positions. This project will address the needs of an ever-expanding industry by providing both secondary and post-secondary educators and students with a variety of educational opportunities, such as: 1) Up-to-date and relevant work-based curriculum; 2) Articulation agreements between partnering secondary and post-secondary institutions; 3) Professional development workshops in UAS applications and operations; and 4) Summer high school academies specifically designed to inform and excite students (many of whom are from traditionally underserved and underrepresented communities) about UAS applications, educational opportunities, and career pathways. A unique element of the summer academies is the inclusion of students from the Pacific Islands, providing an opportunity for students from San Diego County and the Pacific Islands to become culturally connected, learn from one another, work together with different global perspectives to solve problems, and potentially make life-long connections with someone from a different part of the world. The project team includes college faculty, secondary school partners, educational consultants, and industry professionals. This project will provide relevant curriculum and educational opportunities for both secondary and post-secondary students, better preparing them to become skilled and thoughtful members of the UAS workforce.

The mission of this project is to strengthen the educational opportunities and career pathways in drone technology and applications for secondary and post-secondary students so that they can succeed as employees or entrepreneurs in the ever-expanding UAS field. To meet the mission, three goals will be implemented, each with a set of objectives, activities, and deliverables: 1) Curriculum: In consultation with industry and education partners, the project team will: a) Create industry-aligned work-based learning projects; b) Develop and offer an advanced course in drone photography and videography; c) Create a set of engineering learning modules (in manufacturing, maintenance, and customization) to be offered in existing introductory engineering courses which will then be added to the list of program electives. 2) Professional Development: UAS are being used across a variety of disciplines, therefore it is important that secondary and post-secondary educators in those disciplines have hands-on, professional development opportunities in UAS applications so that they can share this information with their students. As part of the 2-day workshops, participants will create curriculum that will be vetted and placed on the National Center for Autonomous Technologies (NCAT) resource repository. 3) Secondary Education: In order to link high school learning experiences to college and careers, the project will do the following activities: a) Partner high school UAS curriculum will be cross-walked and modified where needed in order to articulate it to the college curriculum. The articulated course will create an academic pipeline for students, as the course will go toward the completion of the Southwestern College Drone Technology and Applications Certificate. b) The project will host hybrid summer drone academies for students in San Diego County and the Pacific Islands. At the academies, students will receive real-time instruction on flight training, data collection/processing, autonomous flight coding, and collaborative problem solving. The project evaluation will include formative feedback throughout the 3-year project along with annual evaluation reports that will assess progress towards achieving the goals and objectives. A summative evaluation at the end of the project will examine the effectiveness of strategies and provide an overall assessment of how well the project has met its goals. To maximize impact, the best practices and resulting content of the project will be documented and disseminated in publications, at various conferences, and on NCAT.