Welcome to the ATE Central Connection! Published the first Monday of each month, the ATE Central Connection is meant to disseminate information to and about ATE centers and projects, providing you with up-to-date ATE news, events, reminders, as well as highlighting new centers, projects, and resources. In addition, we will also highlight an educational topic with complementary resources found within ATE Central to help illustrate how ATE resources can be used in the classroom.
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The American Association of Community Colleges with the support of the National Science Foundation will hold the seventeenth national ATE Principal Investigators Conference, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. The conference brings together approximately 800 people to focus on the critical issues related to advanced technological education. Key people working on ATE projects across the country participate in the conference. Conference attendees represent community colleges, business and industry, secondary school systems, four-year colleges, and research and development centers covering projects in a wide variety of areas such as: information technology, engineering technology, micro- and nanotechnologies, chemical technology, biotechnology, and others.
Here is a small sample of the valuable resources in ATE Central that focus on Biotechnology:
From Bio-Link:
Here users will find an assortment of Bioscience/Agricultural Biotechnology Skills Standards. These should be useful for development of new programs as well as for comparisons with existing programs. The sections discussed are: Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Skill Standards, Combined Bioscience/Agricultural Biotechnology Skill Standards, Agricultural Biotechnology Skill Standards, Bioscience Industry Skill Standards, National Association of Scientific Materials Managers, ACAP Austin Competency Analysis Profile - Biotechnology, Making Skill Standards Work, and Window on the Workplace.
A venture capital fair is an event where investors listen to brief presentations from various companies that are seeking capital. Based on these presentations, the investors select those companies they think will be profitable and they consider investing money in those companies. In this activity, the class stages a mock venture capital fair. This activity will introduce the business side of biotechnology, demonstrate some of the valuable products that are being developed by biotechnology companies, and provide practice in delivering an effective presentation. This activity is part of a course, Basic Laboratory Methods for Biotechnology.
From the Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing:
This short video, created by Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing, discusses biotechnology as a possible career. The resource interviews management, human resource personnel, and other employees in the field of biotechnology. An excerpt from the site states, "Biotechnology is charting new territories every day - from creating replaceable knees and hips to using nanotechnology to take minute pictures inside the human body." The video explores the many positive aspects of this industry. Some of these include the work environment, the beneficial products produced, and the emerging job market. Explorations of the education needs are also introduced. The twelve community colleges in the state of Connecticut are mentioned for a way to gain expertise and employment in this emerging industry. This is a great resource for students in any state looking for direction into different career avenues.
CWIS is open source software, created with NSF funding, that can help your project or center showcase resources online. It's free and very easy to use — click here to check out a few of the sites running CWIS. We'd be happy to provide you with more information about CWIS and give you a quick tour of its features — please e-mail cwis@scout.wisc.edu to get started!
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