The Advanced Technology Environmental Education Center (ATEEC) and MIT's Center for Environmental Initiatives (CEI) held a Critical Issues Forum on April 27-29, where business and industry representatives, community college instructors and research scientists gathered to recommend strategies for improving their information exchange.
The forum, funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), resulted from a partnership between MIT and ATEEC. Participants aimed to develop curriculum and educational materials on emerging environmental knowledge and technologies, and to establish a faculty exchange and professional development program to create connections between research and applied education as well as the workplace.
"Many people are convinced that environmental concerns and how to use our resources will be the defining issues of the 21st century, and MIT has undertaken a commitment to understand what that means," said Professor of Chemistry Jeffrey Steinfeld, co-principal investigator for the grant. "We must take every opportunity to get knowledge into the hands of the people who can use it, and this project is an excellent start to doing just that."
"ATEEC is good at communicating complicated stuff. MIT does complicated stuff, so it's a good match for both of us," said Dr. Matthew Gardner, education coordinator and research associate at CEI.
Proceedings will be available this summer. For more information, contact Heather Seyfang at x2-3199, seyfang@mit.edu or see the ATEEC web site.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 9, 2001.
