Resource Center

Instructions

The Resource Center is a curated collection of information organized around 7 green economy “Sectors” and 7 “Topics.” In time, more Sectors will be added. Topics represent those areas in which educators and workforce development professionals continue to seek direction.

You can search by sector or by topic. Or across all sectors and/or all topics.

You can also perform a keyword search of all resources on the top right of this page.

Overview

Solar

The solar industry is expected to show steady growth over the coming decade largely due to rising energy prices, advances in technology through public/private partnerships and investments, and continued enactment of federal and state policies and financial incentives. more >>

Wind

Wind power is considered a leading source of new electricity generation in the United States, with the potential of providing 20% of the nation’s energy needs by 2030. more >>

Green Building

The green building market has expanded five fold over the last three years to a $48 billion national market—and is projected to triple in the next five years. more >>

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is considered the foundation of a vibrant and sustainable green economy, and one of the most cost effective ways to lower energy consumption, reduce operating costs, and mitigate carbon emissions. more >>

Sustainability Education

Sustainability education refers generally to learning experiences that enable students to develop the knowledge, behaviors and skills to help create healthier ecosystems, social systems, and economies. For the purposes of the SEED Center, this includes resources to help build non-credit continuing education for the incumbent workforce and integrating sustainability curriculum into existing credit programs. more >>

Sustainable Ag., Food & Land

The Sustainable Ag., Food & Land sector covers the areas of organic farming, horticulture, culinary art, and landscaping. This sector includes organizations and resources that integrate environmental, social and economic factors into land use, food preparation, and land specific practices in an attempt to create a more sustainable future. more >>

General Clean Tech

The General Clean Tech sector is a space for resources that encompass multiple ‘green’ sectors. Many are applicable to the broader clean economy and sustainability-related technology and will serve the general clean tech community. Resources also provide valuable information on sectors that are experiencing substantive development in the sustainability realm, like manufacturing and smart grid. more >>

Transportation and Fuels

The Transportation & Fuels sector covers the area of electric and hybrid vehicle development and maintenance, other forms of alternative and sustainable transportation, natural gas, fuel cells, battery storage, and renewable fuels sources including ethanol, biodiesel, algae, and methane. more >>

Certifications and Industry Credentials

Certainly, one of the biggest challenges facing green educators is the rapid and mostly uncoordinated emergence of green certifications and credentials. more >>

Curricular Materials

These resources and materials have been vetted by industry and education experts, and while not in the form of specific educator tools, will assist in creating quality curricula for your classroom. more >>

You will find more specific educator tools (e.g. syllabi, lab manuals, lesson plans, special classroom projects, equipment lists, etc.) submitted by SEED member colleges in our Curricular Materials Sharing Portal.

Employment Industry Projections

While job training providers have been quite active in past years working with local industry to define the emerging green jobs market and potential job growth areas, most still struggle to forecast accurately regional occupational demand. The U.S. Department of Labor has made recent strides toward classifying green occupations and competencies which will help communities define and track green jobs (and colleges to design appropriate education and training programs). Given the uncertain renewable energy and efficiency industry outlook, and rapidly changing technologies, access to the most up-to-date industry studies and employment projections will be critical. more >>

Innovative Practices & Partnerships

The job creation potential of the green economy has led to some unique job training and economic development partnerships and collaborations. more >>

Professional Development Resources

This section includes promising facilitated learning opportunities, including “train the trainer” programs, standing conferences, and informal learning opportunities situated in practice for faculty and staff seeking to further their knowledge of industry trends and requirements. more >>

Policy & Funding Sources

Included you will find links and descriptions of agencies and organizations that typically fund sustainability and green job training initiatives as well as those that provide important information on national legislation and policies relevant to the clean energy sector. CHECK BACK AS MORE ARE ADDED. This section also highlights resources that provide guidance on how to supply input into program and grant design for certain agency solicitations. more >>

Skill sets, Competencies & Career Pathways

This section includes lists and assessments of skill sets and competencies tied to the green economy – across the broad industry as well as within specific sectors. It also includes some critical resources that colleges can use to align programs and facilitate student transitions. Included are green energy competency models and newly-developed career pathways that allow movement across educational and training programs. more >>

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Featured Resources

Autonomy and Innovation: Systemic Change in a Decentralized State

Autonomy and Innovation, by higher education and workforce development expert Tom Hilliard, describes Michigan’s participation in Achieving the Dream, detailing how college-level reform initiatives highlight the need and build momentum for collective, state-level action to foster collaboration, spread innovation, and make effective use of student outcome data. (November 2012)

Higher Education: Leading the Nation to a Safe & Secure Energy Future

A white paper from ACUPCC and Second Nature that explores how the federal government can develop and enhance energy efficiency and renewable energy incentives for colleges and universities.

NC Greenforce Conference – Community Colleges Focus on Preparing North Carolina’s Green Workforce

This sumary of a statewide conference demonstrates how colleges can work together to develop sustainability and green oriented education while working to grow the green economy workforce. (November 2011)

Partnership for Sustainable Communities

These resources can enhance community partnerships and project based learning (a core pedagogy of sustainability education) by expanding understanding of sustainable communities efforts. The Partnership for Sustainable Communities with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, EPA, and the U.S. Department of Transportation helps improve access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment in communities nationwide. Also view the Grants and Resources pages.

Responding to Economic Crisis: What can community colleges do?

A new paper by MDC describes how a particular ARRA project, Career Pathways for a Green South, helped a set of community colleges expand their capacity to better serve students facing multiple employment barriers. Drawing on their Career Pathways for a Green South experience, MDC’s How Community Colleges Can Respond to Economic Crisis details insights about how colleges can meet current and future workforce needs.

Report - A Green Career Pathways Framework: Postsecondary and Employment Success for Low-Income, Disconnected Youth

Released July 2011, this report explores the extent to which this emerging green economy can offer a pathway out of poverty for low-income young people and offers guidance to youth programs about how to learn more about and access industry-driven green credentialing and career pathways development work within local communities or regions. The paper offers a multi-step Framework that outlines strategies for connecting to career pathway efforts and delineates a three-phase model design to inform the construction of on-ramp programming.
CLICK HERE to learn more about this report.

Report: Building Energy Effective Green Energy Programs in Community Colleges

The aim of this report is to help community colleges across the country navigate a path forward through evolving terrain as they develop green energy education and training programs for lowincome populations. In this paper, Workforce Strategy Center (WSC) examines how community colleges leading the ﬁeld in green energy education are grappling with the issues of identifying green jobs and determining entry level skills. It makes the case that community colleges should be substantially involved in training low-income individuals, especially the low-skilled.

Report: The Greening of Corrections, Creating a Sustainable System

This report identifies green job training programs that provide quality employment opportunities in the emerging green economy. While the section, Completing the Sustainable Model (p 20), provides corrections administrators ways to adapt existing training programs and build strategic partners that support the continuum of learning opportunities during a transition to a greener economy, it is highly relevant to Community College administrators as well.

Siting Renewable Energy on Potentially Contaminated Land and Mine Sites

EPA is encouraging renewable energy development on current and formerly contaminated land and mine sites when it is aligned with the community’s vision for the site. This initiative identifies the renewable energy potential of these sites and provides other useful resources for communities, developers, industry, state and local governments or anyone interested in reusing these sites for renewable energy development.

Smart Growth Network's Building Sustainable Communities Speaker Series

The Smart Growth Speaker Series is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Building Museum and the Smart Growth Network. Smart growth is development that serves the economy, community, and environment. The series hosts speakers on monthly basis to discuss this approach to development, explore specific growth-related issues, foster dialog, and identify opportunities for positive change in growth and development patterns.

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More Resources

EPA's Smart Growth Program

Learn about smart growth issues and environmental benefits. Find information about specific topics, resources, and examples of smart growth development, including the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. Through research, tools, partnerships, case studies, grants, and technical assistance, EPA is helping America's communities turn their visions of the future into reality.

Making Green Work: Best Practices in Green-Collar Job Training

This resource may be of value to the field of adult education as an example of the variety of green sector programs that can be developed, their various funding mechanisms, and the types of credentials they may contain. Its most significant features include a clear and consistent framework for describing programs and a very forthright portrayal of challenges/lessons learned. It is easy to flip through the publication, going from program to program, to compare features. This framework reinforces what programs developers need to address, for example, partnerships and funding, elements of curriculum, instructor,and target participants.

Report - Energy Efficiency Resource Acquisition Program Models in North America

This report provides an explanation of different types of institutional delivery models currently in place across the United States and Canada to acquire energy efficiency as a predictable and reliable resource for meeting existing and future energy demands. This examination and comparison of eight different models yields a new understanding of the benefits and weaknesses states and provinces accepted when making choices during the development of these programs. Although the report focuses on programs targeting the industrial sector, the lessons learned are not specific to one sector or geographic region.

Autonomy and Innovation: Systemic Change in a Decentralized State

25% Renewables by 2025

View “25x’25”s resources page which covers both technology and policy issues that can prove helpful in the development of curricular materials and information packets. "25x'25" is a nonprofit advocating for renewable energy and a goal for America – to get 25 percent of our energy from renewable resources like wind, solar, and biofuels by the year 2025.

Alliance for Sustainability: Building a better life and workforce in rural America

This network builds partnerships with community-based organizations, industry associates, government agencies, and extension services to educate the labor force, communities, and youth about sustainable development.

BlueGreen Alliance

The BlueGreen Alliance is a national, strategic partnership between labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy.

Case Studies of State Support for Renewable Energy

The purpose of this series is to report on the innovative programs and administrative practices of state clean energy funds, to highlight sources of information and to identify contacts. Berkeley Lab, in collaboration with the Clean Energy Group, initiated this case study series that reports on the use of clean energy funds.

Climate Change Solutions: Strategies and Partnerships

This webpage discusses examples of strategies, collaborative partnerships, technologies, energy and water efficiency opportunities, and other opportunities to mitigate the effects of global warming and help reduce emissions.

Disciplinary Associations Network for Sustainability (DANS)

Sponsored by the US Partnership on Education for Sustainable Development, the Disciplinary Associations Network for Sustainability is an informal network of professional associations working on professional development, educating the public, curricula and standards, legislative briefings, and cross disciplinary projects on education and sustainability. Be sure to look over their Resources page <>

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