COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The University of Maryland's Clark School of Engineering will offer a new online course on energy problem solving supported by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for transitioning military service members and veterans. The four-credit, undergraduate level course, titled "Designing Quantitative Solutions for Energy," will offer real world design experiences for students.

Research associate professor Leigh Abts and assistant professor Ian White designed the course specifically for transitioning service members and veterans. The course is supported by the DoD's Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) through their Broad Agency Announcement for basic and applied research. The vision of the ADL initiative is to provide access to the highest quality learning experiences that can be tailored to individual needs, harnessing the power of information technologies.

"This course has the potential to be transformational in helping transitioning active duty and veterans to develop design process skills and adopt a different approach to problem solving," said Abts. "Design is the best context for students to learn about energy and work toward addressing real world challenges."

Abts, along with colleagues in UMD's College of Education, previously partnered with the Department of Energy, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Environment and Energy Study Institute to develop an interdisciplinary "Energy 101" curriculum aimed at offering standardized energy and sustainability learning experiences for undergraduates at colleges and universities across the country.

The new "Designing Quantitative Solutions for Energy" course at the University of Maryland is consistent with efforts by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to spur science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education for U.S. military veterans to help prepare them for high-tech jobs.

The course will be offered in the spring semester of 2014.

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