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All information comes from sources considered to be reliable, but the accuracy cannot be guaranteed. ATEEC or its representatives do not accept responsibility for any material printed in ATEEC News.

Opinions, views, and commentary expressed in ATEEC News reflect those of authors, and the authors accept responsibility for unsolicited stories, columns, or artwork.

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ATEEC News Online–Fall 2003

A Digest of Education and Career Opportunities
in Environmental Science and Technology

CONTENTS

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2004 ATEEC Fellows Institute Studies Surface Water Pollution

Each June the ATEEC Fellows Institute gives teachers the opportunity to study the latest information and research on current environmental issues. For the 2004 Institute, ATEEC is inviting twenty high school and community college science, math, and environmental technology teachers to learn about surface water pollution.

The University of Northern Iowa (UNI), located in Cedar Falls, Iowa, hosts this week-long professional development opportunity. The lead instructors, Professors Ed Brown and Maureen Clayton at UNI, have been studying nonpoint source pollution of Iowa's lakes, streams, and wetlands for several years. The Institute will include a field trip to a study area near Cedar Falls as well as classroom and research activities appropriate for high school and community college students.

Professor Brown has invited researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to share their knowledge and research on surface water pollution.

In preparation for the Institute, the teachers will receive an instructional resource module entitled "Round Rivers," which was developed jointly by MIT and ATEEC. This CD-ROM module deals with the interconnectivity of surface water systems, and how it relates to agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) contamination. The module's case study illustrative of this point deals with NPS contamination of the northern Gulf of Mexico, also known as "The Dead Zone." This zone has been afflicted with hypoxia, which is believed to be caused by surface runoff of chemicals into the Mississippi River and eventually into the Gulf.

If you are interested in applying for the 2004 ATEEC Fellows Institute to be held June 17-23, go to: http://www.ateec.org/prof_dev/fellows.cfm and complete the application materials by January 9, 2004. If you have any questions, contact Jeanette Bryson at ATEEC.

ATEEC Receives NSF Supplemental Grant to Pilot-Test Climate Change Instructor Resource Module

Through an NSF grant, ATEEC and MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE) has developed a series of seven instructor resource modules entitled Technology and Environmental Decisionmaking: A Critical-thinking Approach to 7 Environmental Challenges. The subject matter covers the areas of environmental health impacts, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), climate change, air quality, point and nonpoint source contamination of water, the future of the automobile, and environmental decisionmaking.

In August, NSF provided a supplemental grant to perform a systematic evaluation of the climate change module, which is intended to enhance existing curricula and course structures. ATEEC is coordinating the evaluation effort, using a small group of instructors from around the country who attended this summer's ATEEC Fellows Institute on climate change. The instructors will develop individual, customized plans to pilot-test the climate change resource material in their classrooms in the next year.

The pilot-test is intended to ensure implementation and evaluation of the module by community college instructors and students and to gauge the usability and effectiveness of the module in a real-world educational setting. The pilot-test will also provide insights into marketing strategies to address the wide variety of circumstances in which the module is expected to be used.

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Mississippi River CD Will Be Released for Middle School Students

Institute of Museum and Library Services Grant

The Advanced Technology Environmental Education Center (ATEEC) has completed work on the IMLS grant project Connected by a River: Plants, Animals, and People. The educational CD-rom was a collaboration among ATEEC, the Davenport Public Library, the Putnam Museum, and Nahant Marsh in Davenport.

The CD has five modules: Life Forms and Habitats, Human-Made Structures, Wetlands, Nahant Marsh Case Study, and Pollution. Each module was written with middle school curriculum standards in mind and ease of navigation for interactivity. The CD is compatible with both Macs and PCs. Four of the five modules were produced in PowerPoint to enable customization by the teachers. The Life Forms and Habitats module will be marketed to the public for less than $10.

"This project turned into a fascinating endeavor for all of us," said Dr. Ellen Kabat Lensch, ATEEC's director. "The Mississippi River is a great study with all of its facets and the way it impacts the lives of those who live along its banks. We're especially honored to be a part of the Grand Excursion 2004, a celebration of the Mississippi River scheduled for next summer that includes a special trunk full of educational materials for schools in our region," Kabat Lensch said.

The Connected by a River CD-rom will be available for purchase at $25 by schools. For more information, contact Jeanette Bryson by phone at 563.441.4091 or by email at J. Bryson, ATEEC .

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eERL Beta Testing

Just finishing its first year, the electronic Environmental Resources Library (eERL) is a brand new iteration of ATEECs first electronic library, ATEEL. ATEEL is still on the web until eERL is fully developed. Funded by NSF and part of the National Science Digital Library (www.nsdl.org), eERLs catalogued information will be available both through the NSDL library site and at www.eerl.org. The resources on eERL are juried, or reviewed, by a team of handpicked educators and then catalogued by a team of librarians. This fall and next spring, eERL will be put through a series of tests to make it as responsive to its users as possible.

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From ECAT to HSET

The former Environmental Compliance and Technology (ECAT) program at Scott Community College is now called Health, Safety, and Environmental Technology (HSET). Sporting a new look, a new name, and newly developed courses in the associate and certificate program offerings, HSET offers the many advantages of online classes:

  • attend class from the convenience and comfort of your home
  • work while maintaining your current employment status
  • classes taught by environmental and safety instructors/professionals from across the nation. If you would like to apply to teach online, please send your credentials to ATEEC, ATTN. J. Bryson.

If you want to continue your educational experience after graduation, you can choose from a variety of articulation agreements with various state universities, private colleges and online institutions. SCC graduates with an AAS degree or certificate in Health, Safety and Environmental Technology have the training and education needed today! See www.eicc.org/hset/ for info.

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Cut, Paste, and Create!

Market Your Program Using ATEEC's Defining Wall Chart!

Jeff Bates of Columbus State Community College (CSCC) has developed a new brochure for their Environmental Technology program. The brochure includes ATEEC's Defining Environmental Technology Wall Chart which lists 10 environmentally related occupational categories and 100 job titles. Jeff says that by using the wall chart, students get a better understanding of the wide range of technician level environmental occupations available to them. CSCC's brochure is available at www.ateec.org/

A template of the brochure can be accessed at www.ateec.org/ and modified to showcase your credit program. For example, ATEEC used the template to design a brochure for the Health, Safety and Environmental Technology program offered at Scott Community College (www.ateec.org/) The template is in Word format so you can easily change the photos, fonts, etc., to fit your program needs.

We'd love to see your work! Please send a copy of your new brochure to ATEEC, and we will add it to our collection of credit programs offered throughout the PETE network. You can email a file in Word or PDF format to jbryson@eicc.edu or mail a hard copy to:

  • ATEEC Attn: Program Brochures
  • 500 Belmont Road
  • Bettendorf, IA 52722

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NSF Funds ATEEC as Resource Center

ATEEC has received an additional four years of continued funding from the National Science Foundation. The focus of the new grant is to further position ATEEC to be a permanent and highly visible source of materials, ideas, contacts and mentoring in the environmental technology education field. Some of the Centers new initiatives include:

  • Establish closer link with other NSF-ATE environmental projects
  • Expand the scope of resources to include environmental information for a variety of career fields
  • Increase awareness of environmental careers at the H.S. level
  • Establish a national system of online environmental courses for all community colleges
  • Provide mentoring services for community colleges
  • Establish an array of professional development programs, products and services for corporate clients

Working closely with ATEEC to accomplish these initiatives is ATEEC's Program Officer, Dr. Elizabeth Teles. For more information on Dr. Teles, see the Profile section.

Learn Environmental, Health and Safety Issues for Technical and Health Care Occupations

Learn Environmental, Health and Safety Issues for Technical and Health Care Occupations Learning about protecting your health and safety as well as protecting the environment is important for all occupations, not just those working in the environmental, health, and safety field. Therefore, ATEEC has produced two CD-ROM programs that introduce information on: What is a Hazardous Material? Protecting Workers Protecting the Environment Transporting Hazardous Materials PowerPoint presentations are used to deliver introductory information on OSHA, EPA, and DOT regulations and much more. Users may navigate through the presentation with ease and link to hundreds of online resources. To learn more about these Environmental, Health, and Safety CD-ROM programs, contact Jeanette Bryson at 563.441.4091. This project is partially funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

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National PETE News

www.ateec.org/pete/

As we enter the fall and brace ourselves for the winter months, what can we expect in the future for our graduates and our training programs? Predictions are that the economy is slowly rebounding and companies should be hiring again, we can only hope. Yet, in many areas of the environmental, health, safety, energy, anti-terrorism and emergency preparedness fields the job prospect is very promising. There is a current shortage in many areas of the county in the water/wastewater sector with great opportunities for trained people, and it appears this will be a trend for some period with a retirement phase hitting this sector. Training needs of the existing workforce in many areas of environmental, health, safety, emergency preparedness, security, environmental management and sustainability are in demand for many companies that community colleges need to consider marketing.

We are very pleased to see that the energy services and technology technician appears to developing into a field of demand. Hopefully passage of an energy bill currently working its way through Congress will increase the demand as we institutionalize more alternative and renewable energy programs in this country. We encourage colleges to consider this sector and look at blending energy programs in their environmental programs if possible, to give students that extra edge.

As many of you know, we are waiting to see who the new Administrator of EPA will be, and what direction the agency will take under new leadership. Of course, we will be interested in the impact on environmental jobs and future growth areas, and how PETE can position itself to assist our colleges.

This summer PETE coordinated its fourth Youth-in-the-Environment Project for EPA Region 2 in New York City, and launched a new site in Newark, NJ. This years program involved placing approximately 27 inner city teenagers from the Bronx in a summer work and environmental career exploration program at several of NY City DEP's wastewater laboratories, monitoring stations, wastewater treatment facilities, Customer Service Bureaus, etc. We hired six Bronx Community College - Environmental Technology students as Youth Coordinators for this project. In Newark, NJ we launched a new site with 4 youth in cooperation with the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners - Wastewater Treatment Facility. It was another successful year of introducing youth to positive work experience, the environmental career field, environmental technology college opportunities at Bronx Community College, and most importantly mentoring of our youth. We are looking forward to coordinating this program next year and looking at expanding sites once again. We also launched a similar pilot Youth-in-the-Environment program in Saco, Maine for U.S. EPA Region 1. If anyone is interested in learning more about this program, please contact this office.

We are continuing to work with our model Energy Services and Technology Curriculum Project with U.S. Department of Energy and our "pilot" colleges. We are hopeful to garner additional support from U.S. DOE to expand our "pilot" college pool and coordinate faculty train-the-trainer opportunities in the energy services field.

We have posted the How to Launch an Energy Services and Technology CD on our website along with ATEEC's, and we encourage colleges to consider this as a new program option.

We have several other projects that are under way, U.S. EPA College and University Water Use Efficiency "pilot" Project, U.S. EPA - Office of Pollution Prevention (OPPT) Tribal College Pollution Prevention Initiative, and a U.S. EPA - Lead Safe Work Practices Web Based Training Project. We will highlight these projects in future issues of ATEEC News.

PETE and ATEEC continue to work in partnership on several projects and programs to benefit instructors and our member colleges along with looking at new opportunities. I encourage you to review the many opportunities and materials available on ATEEC's website.

We say good bye to Steve Fenton as he steps down as Regional Director of Northwest PETE after serving the Region well over the past few years, we wish him well as he steps down from his post at Highline Community College in WA and considers his future. The Northwest PETE Board assured a smooth transition of the Regional Director with the appointment of Nolan Curtis as the new Regional Director of NW PETE, he has been a long-standing NW PETE Board Member and we look forward to his leadership.

Our PETE regions have been active with successful Instructor Conferences, the Joint West and Northwest PETE Instructor Conference in Portland, Oregon August 7-9, 2003 in conjunction with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. This fall Northeast and Southeast PETE Instructor Conference will be held October 14-16, 2003 in Orlando, Fl. North Central and South Central PETE are already in the planning stages for their 2004 Joint Conference to be held in March in Oklahoma, and Western and Northwest PETE Regions are planning theirs for Salt Lake City, Utah in August. The PETE network is an invaluable resource for anyone who utilizes its advantages. Look for specific information on these conferences described in the PETE Regions section of the ATEEC News or contact the PETE Regional Office.

On behalf of the PETE Regions and the National PETE Office we encourage you to contact us with ideas for conference topics, instructor development ideas, curriculum needs, project ideas and any other issues you feel would be helpful to you, fellow instructors or other colleges. We are here for your assistance.

For more information on any of the PETE initiatives or to discuss other points of interest, please feel free to contact Kirk J. Laflin (CET), PETE Executive Director.

Sincerely,
Kirk J. Laflin , CET
Executive Director

584 Maine Street
South Portland, Maine 04106
Tel: 207.771.9020
Fax: 207.771.9028
Web Site: www.ateec.org/pete/


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Regional PETE News Menu

Regional PETE Web Sites

Western: NETA Changes Name

National Environmental Training Association Changes Name

After years of discussion and deliberation, the National Environmental Training Association (NETA) voted at its annual board meeting on June 7th to change the organization's name to National Environmental, Safety and Health Training Association (NESHTA). A parallel decision was made also to revise the name of the Certified Environmental Trainer (CET) to Certified Environmental, Safety and Health Trainer, while retaining the "CET" designation initials.

These decisions are intended to reflect the reality of the associations membership composition and the scope of the certification. For at least the past fifteen years, the majority of NETA's members specialized in occupational safety and health and related areas, rather than strictly in "environmental" training. Originally founded in 1977 to promote improvements in wastewater operator training, the membership quickly expanded into other regulated specialty areas. Meanwhile, the CET certification, developed beginning in 1983 primarily for wastewater and water treatment operator trainers, also came into demand by hazmat and - because of the specific training provisions included in new federal regulations - occupational safety and health trainers. About 70% of the association's members and CET's are involved primarily or exclusively in areas other than wastewater and water.

The association also took advantage of the change to reorganize the structure of its board of directors. For the past twelve years, directors have been elected from regions mirroring the federal regional system. Hereafter, directors will be elected from industry sectors, specifically: Industry; Private or Public Utilities (includes public power companies, as well as wastewater or drinking water utilities); Consultants and Contractors (to government, private, or public organizations); Public or Private Four Year Educational Institutions; EPA-designated Environmental Training Centers; PETE Colleges/Two Year Educational Institutions; Government (federal, state or local); Public, Public Interest or Non-Governmental Organizations (Non-Profits); Allied Organizations (e.g., ASSE, AIHA, ACHMM, NEHA, others); Labor Unions (with ESH training programs); and Communications and/or Information Technology Companies (with a demonstrated interest in or ESH training component). The Nominating Committee also will strive for a geographic balance among these sectors.

Brownfields Meeting in Virginia

The Annual Brownfields Job Training and Development Pilots Meeting was held August 27-28, 2003, in Alexandria, Virginia. This annual meeting provides a unique opportunity for EPA-funded grantees to share a variety of approaches to Brownfields Job Training and Development. The focus of the meeting is for grantees to exchange information and ideas with each other and with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional and Headquarters representatives enabling each grantee to develop their best possible job training program.

The August meeting was attended by 49 people representing academic institutions, community-based organizations, state and local government, workforce investment boards, business and industry, and organized labor. The morning session consisted of short program reports given by the grantees, including a topic they wanted to discuss with the group. The remainder of the agenda was informal, facilitated discussion on the topics identified by the grantees in the morning session.

Networking is key to this meeting. Participants receive a three-ring binder filled with information pertinent to their job training programs. Included in the binder is a complete participant list that contains contact information for everyone who was in attendance. HMTRI also maintains a ListServ that is used by the grantees to continue their networking after the meeting. The ListServ is a valuable tool used to share information and ideas, ask questions, share curriculum, etc.

EPA funded ten new Brownfields Job Training and Development Demonstration projects in June 2003. Fifty-six Job Training projects have been funded since the EPA Brownfields Initiative began in 1994.

The annual meetings are provided and facilitated by HMTRI through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. HMTRI has been working with EPA since 1994 providing technical assistance to grantees of EPA's Brownfields Initiative. For more information, contact Glo Hanne at 563.441.4081 or Glo Hanne, ATEEC .

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Northwest PETE

October 2003

EXCELLENT REVIEWS FOR NORTHWEST & WESTERN PETE JOINT REGIONAL INSTRUCTORS' CONFERENCE

Insights from industry and agency offerings pace professional development conference

For the third straight year, Northwest and Western PETE joined forces for their annual instructors' conference. This year's venue was the fabulous Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) in Portland, Oregon, August 6 - 9.

Anchored by the Community and College Consortium for Health & Safety Training (CCCHST) Refresher, the conference swung into high gear on Thursday with welcoming remarks from Nancy Stueber, President, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). The keynote was delivered John R. Emrick, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Norm Thompson Outfitters, Inc. -- a $200 million Portland-based catalog retailer. From green buildings to green business, Emrick has led Norm Thompson to become an environmentally visionary and exemplary enterprise. Presenting a cogent argument backed by example that profitability, sustainability, and social conscience are not mutually exclusive, Emrick continues to lead change by leading the charge for recycled content throughout the catalog industry. Norm Thompson has twice been named the Direct Marketing Association's "Rodale Environmental Mailer of the Year" and received Portland BEST awards for energy efficiency and waste reduction.

Other highlights of the days activities were included an Omnimax presentation of "Lewis and Clark: Great Journey West," tours of OMSI, and a reception hosted by the museum.

General Sessions and presentations on Friday, August 8, included:

  • Bioterrorism by Cynthia Root, Kirkwood Community College
  • Overview of the Incident Command System for Public Institutions by Ron Freeman, FEMA
  • Brownfields Program Update by Mike Slater, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10
  • National Science Digital Library (NSDL) by Dr. Ellen Kabat-Lensch, ATEEC
  • Lead Based Paint Maintenance Training Program by Rick Richardson, NETA
  • Energy Services and Technology Management by Kirk Laflin, PETE
  • The Natural Step by Duke Castle, Oregon Natural Step Network
  • An Environmental Look at Global Issues, Muthena Naseri

The sessions concluded with a panel discussion: "Future Funding Opportunities and Collaborations between PETE, Community Colleges, Museums and Libraries." Nancy Pearlman, host of the nation's longest running environmental radio broadcast, taped interviews with many of the participants.

Over 60 participants including presenters and attendees took part in the conference with several brave souls staying over until Saturday for a Willamette River jetboat tour. Special kudos to Steve Fenton, Conference Coordinator, for an outstanding effort, and to Dr. Andrew Jackman of OMSI.

2004's conference is slated for Salt Lake City. Don't miss it!

NORTHWEST PETE LAUNCHES NEW WEB SITE

A new path for regional affiliates?

This month Northwest PETE has begun launching its new web site, Northwest PETE. "We need to explore ways to better serve our members and our clients," said Nolan Curtis, Northwest PETE's new executive director. "We are still linked to national PETE, ATEEC, and all of our partners. We hope the move to our new domain will make us easier to find. We also needed a platform where we could be more responsive to our own organizational needs."

"For the record, the ATEEC crew have been great in supporting the PETE regions. But, as our own organization (Northwest PETE is its own non-profit corporation), its time we stepped a little away from the nest and became more self-sufficient. We will continue to work with ATEEC (and rely on them) as we build our site and web-enabled capacity," said Curtis. "We're constantly adding more content and debugging the system. I expect it will be a little rough sledding at first."

Northwest PETE anticipates that the Internet will play a critical and ever-increasing role in the organization's future operations. Initial web hosting costs are being absorbed by Northwest PETE with web design services being donated by Curtis and his company. You are encouraged to log on and let us know what you think.

Contact Information for Northwest PETE:

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North Central/South Central PETE

2003 Conference

  • 2004 Conference: "Meeting the Needs of Today's World"
  • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
  • March 18-20, 2004

We need your expertise as a speaker or breakout session presenter. Do you have a program, information, or ideas that will help trainers and professors meet the needs of today's world?

If so, please give your name, institution, city, state, zip, phone, fax, email, topic, and a short synopsis. Patti Thompson or fax to 319.398.1250.

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South Central PETE

Transitioning toward Success: Contact Information

New Orleans, Louisiana is hot, humid and somewhat unbearable during the summer months. While others spent time vacationing or reworking syllabi (a leisure pursuit of all excellent professors!) some of us were hard at work on several projects. As Program Manager I have undertaken calling all schools in the regional states that have Environmental or closely related program. This slow process will, hopefully, allow us to grow our list of SC PETE schools in the region. We are using email as a communication tool at this time. Plans are in the making for a newsletter for the region.

I have been working on submission to the newest and greatest virtual resource evereERL! All PETE members and instructors will benefit from a wealth of material brought together by the librarians and researchers working on eERL.

As part of an interest in bringing together Best Practices in the Environmental Technology field, I asked Mike McKay of Texas State Technical College to share a great activity from his Hazwhoper Course! Good teaching (and delegating), Mike! The following information is about Mike and the activity.

Environmental Science students enrolled at Texas State Technical College (TSTC) located in West Texas at Breckenridge have the opportunity to write their own destinies. As part of HAZWOPER training at TSTC, the students actually write out the scenarios that will be enacted the last seven class days of the semester under the supervision of instructors Mike McKay and Matthew Hise.

The students receive instructions on PPE / SCBA, monitoring equipment, the incident chain of command, health and safety aspects, hazards recognition, and how to use MSDS sheets and the North American Emergency Response Guidebook. Students are paired into groups to write up a scenario and then present it to the class on their assigned day. The other students become the incident responders and are assigned duties and tasks to respond to the fictitious, yet realistic, incident while the writers of the scenario become "ghost men" that facilitate in the response.

The incidents become "as real as you can get without having real chemicals and real dead bodies" according to McKay. Being that there are no real chemicals released, the "ghost men" can walk around while the entry team is monitoring and hold up a sheet of paper indicating the readings the monitor should read which gets relayed up the chain of command.

This is the second year for the school to practice their scenarios in this fashion, building on the success of last year. "Last year the scenarios were great, we had a simulated chlorine leak at the water treatment facility, a cleanup of a methamphetamine lab, two downed workers in the confined space laboratory, and a spill in a chemical lab," says Hise. The students don't just write the scenarios, they also have to gather props and get permission from landowners to make their scenario work. This is a new semester at TSTC and we the instructors are excited to see what new scenarios are going to be presented this year.

Dr. Sharon Flanagan, SCPETE Program Manager
Nunez Community College
3710 Paris Road
Chalmette, LA 70043
504.680.2338
Sharon Flanagan

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Northeast/Southeast PETE

2003 Conference in Orlando, Florida: October 14-16

The NE/SE Region held its October 14-16, 2003 Instructor's Conference at the beautiful Hilton in the Walt Disney World resort just outside Orlando, Florida. Major topics dealt with the "Future of Environmental Technology and Terrorism/Security." Three special pre-conference training programs were available: a Hazwhoper Refresher, Emergency Response to Terrorism (FEMA), and Drinking Water System Security.

This conference provided an outstanding venue to network with environmental educators and safety trainers from industry, government, and education. The pre-conference training programs was held on Tuesday the 14th with the conference starting on Wednesday the 15th.

We are also proud to announce that we have eight new community college members in the region.

For information on Northeast/Southeast PETE, you may contact Borden Morrow at 251.990.0420 or E-mail Borden Morrow .

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Upcoming CD ROM Releases: First MIT Module and "Virtual Waste Site"

ATEEC will soon release two new CD ROMs: "Virtual Waste Site" and "Infectious Disease Emergence." Virtual Waste Site is an interactive simulation, conceived by HMTRI's Doug Feil.

Infectious Disease Emergence is the first instructional module to be completed for the MIT-ATEEC grant. A case study approach is used to inform teachers about researchers' views of societal, ecological, and environmental trends associated with a dangerous increase of both old and new infectious diseases. The module includes student activities and Web resources for multidisciplinary teaching opportunities in environmental technology, the basic and social sciences, math, allied health fields, and communications.

Contact Jeanette Bryson for release dates and ordering information at 563-441-4091 or email her at jbryson@eiccd.cc.ia.us.

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Featured Profile

Dr. Elizabeth J. Teles, Lead Program Director for ATE

Elizabeth Teles, currently the Acting Division Director for the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE), has been the Lead Program Director for the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program in DUE.

At NSF, she organized and later edited the proceedings for three conferences: Partners in Progress, Gaining the Competitive Edge, and Investing in Tomorrow's Teachers. She also served as one of the primary authors of the ATE program. She is the first permanent NSF program director with a background in two-year college education. In 2002 she received the Director's Award for her work in broadening participation in NSF activities by two-year colleges. At NSF, she served on a short-term assignment as the NSF Science Manager at the South Pole Station during the summer of 1999. She was also selected as one of the Department of State-NSF Embassy Fellows and served her fellowship in August and September of 2001 at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

Dr. Teles taught mathematics at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland, from 1969 to 1991, when she joined NSF, first as an NSF/AACJC Fellow and then as a program director. Two of her interests are the thoughtful introduction of technology into the mathematics curriculum and active student learning. She has also had experience in high school teaching and has worked in various programs at the University of Maryland, including supervision of graduate teaching assistants. In 1991 she received the Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics Outstanding College Teaching Award.

Dr. Teles holds a B.A. in mathematics from Winthrop College, an M.A.T. in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Maryland. In 1996 she received the National Council for Resource Development Special Recognition Award for outstanding service to two-year colleges, and in 2000 she received the Mathematical Association of America's award for service to mathematics. We feel Dr. Teles has made an outstanding contribution to improving the educational experience of two-year college students.

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Student Profile

Meet George Riley, Seeking His 2nd Associates Degree through ECAT/HSET

George Riley, our featured student, has an Associate of Arts degree from Troy State and currently has only three classes to complete for his Bachelors degree. He is concurrently seeking his second Associates degree through ECAT/HSET. The information he has gained from the ECAT/HSET program has helped him tremendously with his daily duties in the Army. He is a Staff Sergeant serving in a Team leader position (Middle Management). In the future he hopes to obtain a Masters degree in Biotechnology from the University of Maryland University College.

After two years of college George entered the military (during the first Persian Gulf War) as a Nuclear Biological and Chemical (NBC) Specialist during which time he sought degrees at EICCD and at Troy State University, AL. Georges military training is extensive and has included many courses which led him to pursue, and compliment (see below), a degree in Environmental Compliance. He is currently taking courses in the ECAT/HSET program by correspondence and finds them to be both educational and convenient because he can complete them anywhere. He recently completed two more courses while he was deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

George enjoys spending time with his family, wife, Kim, and his 2 sons, Josh and Kevin.

Military Courses Related to ECAT/HSET

  • Technical Escort training (Packaging and transportation of chemical warfare agents)
  • Department of Defense (DOD) Radiological Emergency Team Operators course
  • DOE WMD course
  • DOT Transportation of Hazardous Materials course
  • DOD Packaging of Hazardous Materials course
  • EPA course 165.5 (HazWOper)
  • Hazardous Waste Compliance course
  • Hazardous Materials Managers course
  • the Field Management of Chemical Casualties, National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians Certification
  • Department of the Army Safety course
  • the International Hazardous Materials Compliance course (Germany)

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