South Seattle College
EN-10: Community Partnerships

South Seattle Community College, Washington State University, Cascadia College, and the Pacific NW Center of Excellence for Clean Energy are working with industry partners and community organizations to prepare technicians for the sustainable building science technology workforce. Due to the effects of the Baby Boom bubble, retirements in the energy efficiency industry are estimated to reach 23 percent of building energy managers in the next five years. As these skilled and experienced employees prepare for retirement, the market for an even more advanced workforce is expected to grow. More complex building codes and ever emerging technologies create increased demand for increasingly skilled labor. The institutions are addressing industry needs by implementing career and education pathways at all levels of the skill continuum. The potential societal benefits include producing a stable supply of highly skilled and diverse graduates to serve as managers of sustainable buildings into the future. The specific goals of the project are to: (1) design a Baccalaureate of Applied Science (BAS) curriculum that meets the needs of both employers and targeted populations (i.e. students from groups that are typically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines); (2) incorporate curricular innovations such as industry-recognized certifications and building benchmarking skills into the curriculum; (3) enhance recruiting and retention of students from targeted populations: veterans and underrepresented groups - women and minorities; (4) create summer workshop programs for high school teachers resulting in curricular materials that they can use with their students. http://georgetown.seattlecolleges.edu/general/nationalsciencefoundationgrant.aspx

Community Orchard of West Seattle, (COWS) is a non profit organization and partners with Nature Stewards. COWS provides a home-scale model and venue that demonstrates how much food can be grown on a city-sized lot. Produce goes to volunteers and local food security programs. COWS broke ground in the winter of 2011 and in its first year converted a narrow strip of unused land on the north east end of South Seattle College. Today you will find a working community garden and growing food forest orchard. COWS uses permaculture and organic growing principles. All efforts are made in demonstrating low-maintenance sustainable food production strategies. http://fruitinwestseattle.org/