Place-based education (PBE) will be explored while weaving in my own experiences with place growing up in West Virginia surrounded by the coal industry. PBE is a teaching method that provides meaningful instruction for students by transforming their community or place into their classroom. PBE can teach students how to truly inhabit their places…

"An Overview of Coal and the Economy in Appalachia," a report commissioned by the Appalachian Regional Commission, details major trends in coal employment and production in the Appalachian Region over the past two decades. The report examines where employment and production losses have been concentrated within the Region, and also what…

This is the first of two reports exploring the relationship between coal activity and funding for elementary and secondary education in the Appalachian Region. In this first report, patterns in funding for elementary and secondary education are explored using annual data from 1995 to 2016. Counties that had some level of coal employment over this…

As the demand for workers with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills grows ever higher, employers face stiff competition for qualified employees--and with retirements, the pool of employees grows ever smaller. Meanwhile, U.S. education and workforce systems could be failing to keep pace with the needs of the STEM economy,…

The challenge of connecting employers and educators to collaboratively plan for training future workers is an enduring one -- particularly for jobs that are rapidly changing because of technological advancements. This report addresses this challenge as it pertains to employers and educators in the oil and natural gas industry located in and around…

The authors of this report aim to understand the health of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and labor market in the Appalachia region -- defined as the intersection of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia -- with a focus on the mining and extraction industry. This report is the third in a three-part series.…

This article describes how out-of-work miners are engaged in the Empowering Education Initiative, a unique alliance between Country Music Television (CMT) and community colleges in Appalachia. The initiative, which includes a website and a series of country music concerts, is changing the conversation in the Appalachian region, giving hope to…

This second of five annual reports focuses on employment and wages in energy and advanced manufacturing-related industries and on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education indicators in the Appalachia Partnership Initiative (API) region, comprising twenty-seven counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Together,…

The U.S. energy sector has become highly innovative in developing and applying new technologies. These innovations often require higher-paid, more-highly skilled labor, yet many employers in the region report that they have difficulty filling jobs, particularly for medium-skilled (or semi skilled) positions that require only a high school…

This first of five annual reports focuses on employment and wages in energy and advanced manufacturing--related industries and on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education indicators in the Appalachia Partnership Initiative (API) region. Together, these reports will capture trends over the next four years to (1) inform the…

Economic changes and the machinations of the treadmill of production have dramatically reduced the number of jobs provided by extractive industries, such as mining and timber, in the United States and other affluent nations in the post-World War II era. As the importance of these industries to national, regional, and local economies wanes,…

The first artificial satellite, Sputnik, was launched over fifty years ago, on October 4, 1957, marking the beginning of the space age. The launch of Sputnik inspired coal miners' sons in Coalwood, West Virginia, to form a rocket research program. The story of these coal miners' sons was told by Homer Hickham, Jr., in the book Rocket Boys: A…

Many people are invisible within and to the wider society. An adjunct aspect of that situation is that the marginalized are also invisible to one another. This "mutual invisibility" undermines the possibilities of cooperative transcommunal alliances. It is Cedric Sunray's ("Similarities between Tribes and the Ninth Ward,"…

This curriculum guide contains 17 units that provides the basic curriculum components required to develop lesson plans for the heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration curriculum. The guide is not intended to be a complete, self-contained curriculum, but instead provides the teacher with a number of informational items related to the learning…

This brief study is based upon several weeks' observation of schools and mining towns in what are considered the best districts in the bituminous coal region of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Alabama, and upon some years' acquaintance with mining town schools. An attempt has been made to point out in a general way the type of school that should…