Youngstown State University will hold the first annual STEM Explore Summer Program for middle school students in the Youngstown area. The two week session, which is open to 25 students, will run from June 18th until June 29th from 9:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M. The program is intended to increase student interest in STEM subject matter by having the participants perform various STEM experiments and listen to several speakers who will describe what their STEM career entails and how STEM careers are fun and interesting. Each day of the program will have a STEM theme. Several examples of the activities currently scheduled for the students are a sound wave demonstration, a tour of campus bio-swale and rain gardens, a series of forensics experiments and an explanation of weather patterns with the “cloud in a jar” experiment.
The program also features two main projects for the students. Each participant will be required to build their own “pasta bridge” and solar powered car. Both of these projects will be worked on for several days in order to give the students an idea of how to brainstorm for an activity, research the possibilities for each design (via the web) and then construct their final product. All of the activities for the two week program were developed and will be overseen by Dr. Katie Cripe (Beeghly College of Education), Dr. Sherri Lovelace-Cameron (Chemistry), Prof. Robert J. Korenic (School of Engineering Technology) and a group of licensed teachers who have recently received their degrees from Youngstown State University.
Youngstown State University is developing a new institute designed to educate professionals and provide research for the emerging multi-billion dollar shale natural gas industry in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The YSU Natural Gas and Water Resources Institute will provide bachelor’s degree level courses in science and engineering that will lead to an academic minor in gas technologies and also will provide research opportunities for industry focusing on analysis of water used in the shale gas extraction process.
“Given YSU’s location in the heart of the Utica shale region, this new Institute is well-poised to meet the educational and research demands and needs central to this new and growing industry,” said Martin Abraham, dean of the YSU College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, in which the new Institute will be located.
“Establishing YSU’s presence in this fast-changing field is a critical necessity if we are to have a role in educating the future workforce to support this economic growth opportunity.”
Formation of the Institute was announced this morning at the Youngstown, Ohio Utica and Natural Gas Conference and Expo in the Covelli Centre in downtown Youngtown. The event, presented by the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber, is the first conference and exhibition solely focused on Ohio’s emerging shale gas industry.
The Utica shale is a large rock formation thousands of feet below the surface spanning an area from eastern Ohio to Pennsylvania and across the Canadian border. Gas contained in the Utica shale is expected to become a dominant source of natural gas in the United States in this decade. A recent study showed that more than 200,000 jobs, including nearly 9,000 in professional and technical services, will be created or supported by 2015 due to exploration, leasing, drilling and pipeline construction for the Utica shale reserve.
One of the significant issues for the extraction of the gas is the use and recovery of large volumes of water used in the hydraulic fracturing process and the need to treat, analyze and monitor this water.
The YSU Natural Gas and Water Resources Institute will provide research on water-related issues such as analysis and monitoring, remote sensing, remediation and treatment, and reuse and recycle, utilizing faculty and facilities in YSU’s chemistry, mechanical engineering, environmental science, chemical engineering, geology and civil engineering departments.
In addition, the Institute’s educational component will establish an academic minor in natural gas and water resources for students interested in careers in professional and technical fields directly related to shale gas and other unconventional resources, or the petroleum industry in general. Most of the faculty, expertise, courses and laboratory components for the new minor already exist in the STEM College, Abraham said. A few new courses will be created to provide specific technical competencies required for understanding water resource issues associated with the Utica and Marcellus formations.
The concept of the new Institute will be presented to the YSU Board of Trustees in December. Abraham said he hopes to work with an industrial advisory board to identify specific research targets for the new institute and complete the development of the minor by next fall. The first students in the new minor in natural gas and water resources could graduate as early as May 2013.
Youngstown State University hosted its third annual Sustainable Energy Forum on June 5, 6 & 7, 2011. This conference brought together more than 200 attendees from academia, government and industry in far-reaching discussions on various aspects of sustainable energy, including wind, solar, bio-fuels, energy efficiency, liquid fuels, landfill gas and fuel cells.
While the primary objective of the conference was to highten awareness of the imminent environmental challenges and to propose commercially and scientifically viable solutions to resolve problems, other conference objectives included:
Guiding regional economic development through the commercialization of energy technologies.
Promoting collaborative green energy technology ventures, linking the government, businesses and the university.
Discussing information on technologies involving renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Identifying specific areas of essential research and topics for forthcoming discussions.
Pinpointing opportunities to pursue joint research in technology development for sustainable energy.
A key theme for the 2011 Conference was ‘Driving Down the Commercialization Cost of Energy Technologies’. The conference format included several presentations by regional, national, and international researchers, engineers and government figures who all share a keen interest in Sustainable Energy solutions.
Keynote Speakers included Mr. Eric Spiegel, President of Siemens North America, Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy Dr. Henry Kelly, Mr. Jack Ihle, National energy Policy Expert, and Congressman Tim Ryan.
Over a dozen regional agencies and manufacturers displayed product innovations and collaboration opportunities in an Energy Expo that ran concurrent with the conference. Event sponsorship was provided by V&M Star, NorTech, the Dominion Foundation, Johnson Controls, Roth Brothers, the Regional Chamber, Applied Systems and Technology Transfer, and the Youngstown Business Incubator.
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