Impacting the future of power engineering: a focus at the pre-college level

The power industry is undergoing many new and exciting challenges. It is expected that these challenges will continue to exist and new ones will arise as the systems are pushed for greater efficiencies and economics. Therefore, as the workforce evolves from one generation to the next, it will be of paramount importance to have a continuing flow of competent power engineers available for the industry. However, to accomplish this is no small matter. The power industry must compete for students among declining engineering enrollments and what some students may view as more "glamorous" engineering professions. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the power engineering educators to seek methods of ensuring that the flow of competent power engineers is there to meet the needs of the future power industry. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an approach taken to start to attract students at the pre-college level (high school) to careers in electric power engineering. This paper summarizes the results of a workshop designed to work with science teachers to help them better understand electricity and magnetism, show them ways of teaching these basic sciences, and relate how these skills are used by practicing electrical power engineers.