Progress 12/15/18 to 12/14/19
Outputs
Target Audience:SDSU has reviewed the existing (and competitive) programs in the Southern California region, it was determined that the most advanced and effective programs were those developed by Southwestern College and Palomar College. The development of these Drone Technician Certification programs was funded two years ago by the National Science Foundation, with 1 year remaining on the award. It is for this reason that these two colleges were brought on as partners allowing SDSU to not only draw upon their experiences, but also to immediately begin the credit articulation process with these community colleges, as their courses have already been developed. SDSU partnered with Imperial Valley Collegeas a means of codeveloping curriculum specific to agriculture region of the Imperial Valley, with articulation to occur either to the SDSU Imperial Valley campus or to the main campus. As a founding member of the SDIDC, testing location for UAV based deliveries, and partner in the agriculture community of the Imperial Valley, SDSU is consistently working with both the startup UAV community, as well as, large corporations in assessing the markets needs for trained studentsand evaluatingskills needed by those individuals to be employed in this industry to develop curriculum.Additionally, the DACUM event was designed specifically to ensure that the student population supported will have the skills necessary to be employable immediately after graduation. Changes/Problems:The documentation to support the development of a UAV minor, associated curriculum and articulation of credits from Palomar College and Southwester College, which offer AssociateDegrees in UAV, has been developed and areready to be moved through the approval process. Unfortunately, during the performance period the Chair of the Environmental Sciences program, where the UAV program was to reside, stepped away from the position. This effort, documentation and future HEC collaboration submission will be championed by the new Chair of Environmental Sciences when they are identified and have officially started in the role in 2020. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The City of San Diego, with the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (SDEDC) as the lead and SDSU as a partner, has been chosen to participate in The Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV) Integration Pilot Program (IPP) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). The IPP is an opportunity for state, local, and tribal governments to partner with private sector entities to accelerate safe UAV integration and innovation both regionally and nationally. San Diego's local program includes projects like flying medical specimens from UC San Diego for expedited results and cost savings, testing food delivery from restaurants to consumers using Uber and Lyft at San Diego State University, enhancing public safety by deploying drones to incident scenes in advance of first responders (CAPE) and testing the integration and communication between autonomous vehicles (AV) and UAV's in Chula Vista. Chula Vista is the only city in the nation with federal recognition for both AV and UAV testing and validation in a real-world environment. Chula Vista is also home to a highly-sought after test site, that is a large area of vacant, city-owned land in the city's innovation district. The 375-acre site will eventually be developed as a four-year university, but with significant development activity not expected to begin for several years, the city has made the area available for drone researchers and is under consistent use. Within this airspace, UAV testing can involve beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations, night operations, and operations over human beings. Technology to be tested includes detect-and-avoid, identification and tracking, unmanned traffic management, and cybersecurity. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?San Diego State University became a founding member of the San Diego Industrial Drone Consortium (SDIDC), managed by the South County Economic Development Corporation (located in Chula Vista, CA). SDIDC is a member driven organization designed to be an industrial and commercial resource and knowledge center for integrating drones into the workforce. It was through participation in the SDIDC that representatives from SDSU were connected with Ken Yanow at Southwestern and Wing Cheung at Palomar, who will be partners in the future submission of the HECproposal. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1) On March 8thand 9thof 2019, SDSU, Southwestern College, and Palomar College organized a DACUM around an entry level UAV Technician position. Developing a Curriculum (DACUM) is a process that incorporates the use of a focus group in a facilitated storyboarding process to capture the major duties and related tasks included in an occupation, as well as, the necessary knowledge, skills, and traits. This cost-effective method provides a quick and thorough analysis of any job.The process for this effort is described as: Step One:Initial Occupational Profile In the DACUM process, high-performing incumbent workers analyze their own job.DACUM utilizes a panel of six to eight high-performing incumbent workers.Over a two-day period, these skilled workers identify the duties and tasks that make up their job.Under the direction of a neutral facilitator, the panel analyzes their job-related tasks while using a modified brainstorming process that encompasses a storyboarding technique.The final result is an occupational profile presented in a chart format, which describes a job in terms of specific duties and tasks that competent workers must perform.During the process, tasks are also sequenced and ranked based on: Criticality:Essential and/or most important components of a job Most time consuming:Tasks that consume the majority of the workers time. New worker training needs:Tasks that should be included in introductory training programs. Veteran worker training needs:Tasks that should be included in veteran training programs. Steps Two & Three:Validation Process The occupational profile is validated and vetted through various methods.A peer-review process is utilized in a validation workshop to review the initial profile.Once peer reviewed, the profile can then be analyzed through a management review, allowing the management team to synthesize what the workers said, with what they expect and believe the job should encompass. Steps Four & Five:Curriculum Development Once the profile has been validated, a task analysis can be conducted to further define the job.The validated profile and the task analysis can then be used to develop a curriculum. Outcome A documentwas developed that described the entry-level UAV technician overview document to be used for curriculum development, a full page version is include as a separate document in this submittal. 2)2020 USDA NIFA HSI Education Grants Program - Based on the findings of the ICARUS effort, information on leveraging UAV technology in curriculum enhancement was included in the following submission: Proposal Title: Bridging San Diego Mesa College and San Diego State University for Food Sustainability Summary: This project seeks to motivate Hispanic students to pursue careers infood, agricultural, natural resources, and humansciencesby utilizing a STEM-based approach to modern agricultural methods (such as the use of UAV technology) and to blend them with indigenous methods such as Mixtecmilpainterplanting.The goal of this project is to develop and implement a STEM-based, agriculture focused bridge program between San Diego Mesa College (SDMC) and San Diego State University (SDSU). Currently, students at SDMC face challenges in terms of financial resources, persistence rates, as well as transfer rates to 4-year universities. Our goal is to inspire underrepresented students at an early stage and provide them a bridge to 4-year degree program at SDSU and motivate them to apply to graduate school and/or careers in Agricultural/Food Sciences. To achieve this, we will continue to develop a STEM-focused approach to Agricultural/Food Science curricula based on our unique research backgrounds and the Living Laboratories we built here at SDSU from previous USDA funding. The curricula, laboratory modules, and associated fieldwork, incorporate rich indigenous agricultural knowledge, and thus provide strong connections to students' cultural backgrounds. We seek to motivate Hispanic students to pursue careers in food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences by utilizing a STEM-based approach to modern agricultural methods (such as the use of drone technology) and to blend them with indigenous methods such as Mixtec milpa interplanting. We will continue to promote experiential learning through continued cultural immersion with our academic partners in Oaxaca Mexico. Over the course of this project, we aim to transfer a minimum of 30 students from SDMC to SDSU and support at least 180 associate students, 100 undergraduate students, and 6 graduate students including 94 Hispanics through stipends, scholarships, travel funds, grants, curricula, research projects, internships, and international experiences. Linkages to ICURAS - Curricula based on historical indigenous methods will be combined with a STEM focused approach to teach modern agricultural methods such as hydroponics and drone-based remote sensing. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS): Various stakeholders at SDSU are developing a drone-based certificate program entitled Instruction and Certification in AgTech Resources for Unmanned Systems (ICARUS). The goal is to create curricula that support the implementation of a UAS (drone) certification program at SDSU. This program will enable us to teach our students how to pilot, create and monitor drone flight plans; outfit, integrate, and leverage photographic systems; and collect and analyze big data sets. This program will be incorporated into our STEM curricula, which will greatly increase student interest and provide them with additional skill sets for careers in agricultural sciences."
Publications
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