GM North America
In the U.S., GM's initiatives support students from kindergarten to high school. These programs include hands-on environmental education activities, mentoring programs by GM engineers and scientists in math and science, technology curriculum dissemination to schools, and a web site created to educate children and their parents about environment, energy, and technology issues.
The GMability Education web site was named Best Education web site by the Web Marketing Association in 2004. It also won The Holmes Group's 2005 Bronze SABRE award, which recognizes excellence in technical aspects of communication including the production of annual reports, corporate advertising, or web sites. It has a section for teachers and separate, age-appropriate sections for students in grades K-4, 5-8 and 9-12. The teachers' section features downloadable lesson plans, including our award-winning fuel cell curriculum, developed by Weekly Reader. The sections for students feature interactive games, activities, and graphics on the environment, energy, and technology. Students can learn about fuel cells, hybrid technology, how cars and trucks are designed, and what they can do to help the environment.
In 2006, the GMability.com/education web site was refreshed with new interactive material showing how internal combustion engines work, interactive graphics, and age-appropriate games.
This past January, the new content on the site generated a 26 percent increase in page views versus last year and a 37 percent increase in unique visitors from this time last year. The site is also receiving viewers from around the world, as some of the top referrers were google.co.uk, google.ca, and google.com.au.
GMAbility Education web site
The GMability Education web site currently features topics on manufacturing, the environment, and fuel cell technology.
Kindergarten through grade 4
For younger children, GM provides various resources including The Earth Day Way: Every Day to generate enthusiasm for environmental consciousness every day, and the Technology: Inventing the Future curriculum designed to inspire students' interest in science and a future in a science-based career. Science and math curricula are available on GMability.com.
This year, the GM Janesville, Wisconsin assembly plant sponsored an art competition amongst elementary schools students, to create artistic interpretations promoting nature conservation and renewable fuels such as ethanol. Click here to find more about K-4 education resources >>
Middle and high school
Continuing the campaign to excite kids about future energy sources, GM launched Hydrogen: Tomorrow’s Energy Source, a curriculum focused on examining the major energy sources used today, and well as the benefits of using hydrogen for future energy needs, which reached nearly 1.9 million middle school students.
GM and Weekly Reader also launched a new educational program on E85 ethanol aimed at a generation poised to benefit from its use. The multimedia middle school curriculum, “Live Green, Go Yellow: the power of corn,” includes a classroom DVD that demonstrates the process by which ethanol is produced from domestically grown corn. In-class activities introduce students to E85 ethanol and how it could make a positive impact on the way in which we fuel our automobiles by reducing dependence on petroleum and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Using the curriculum, students explore the economic, agricultural, and environmental impacts of using E85 ethanol as a fuel source.
GM continues to sponsor various projects such as the FIRST science and technology robotics competition; MATHCOUNTS, to stimulate interest in math-related careers; and Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program (DAPCEP) to motivate and prepare minority youth for college and careers in technology. Also since 2001, GM of Canada employees have partnered with a local high school developing and delivering locally-developed environmental studies courses. The result was the government-approved Watershed Monitoring and Management course (Grade 11) and the Industry and the Environment course (Grade 12). The courses will be offered again in 2006–2007.
Please refer to the GMability.com pages for details of the resources available for Grades 5-8 and Grades 9-12. Lesson plans can be browsed by topic or by the national standards addressed by each. Read more about educational partnerships with the Society of Automotive Engineers: A World in Motion and the ‘Global Rivers Environmental Education Network'.
Post-K-12 programs
The GM Automotive Service Educational Program (GM ASEP) was established to foster education in technology and develop the next generation of dealer service technicians. GM ASEP is currently offered at 66 colleges in the United States, 14 in Canada, and one in China. This partnership between GM, GM dealerships, colleges, universities, and communities incorporates advanced automotive technical training with a strong academic foundation. By the end of 2006, GM ASEP graduated well over 13,000 dealer service technicians. Students complete their internships at local GM dealerships. These programs offer students outstanding career opportunities, economic development for the community, and improve our customer satisfaction.
For more information visit www.gmasepbsep.com
Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) links GM, EDS, Sun Microsystems, and UGS to develop the automotive Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) team of the future. PLM focuses on all aspects of a product's life - from its design, manufacture, marketing, distribution, maintenance, and finally into recycling, disposal, and re-use/sustainability. Since its inception in 1999, 40 institutions have been selected to join the PACE program. The PACE partners are joined by many companies who contribute software, hardware, training, and technical support to academic institutions in the U.S., Canada, China, Germany, Mexico, Sweden, Australia, and South Korea. As of the end of 2005, the program had provided a combination of in-kind and cash contributions with a total commercial value exceeding $3.95 billion to 34 PACE institutions globally. For more information on PACE partnerships please see the PACE web site: www.pacepartners.org.
Challenge X is a groundbreaking student engineering competition sponsored by GM and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The Challenge X program was established by the DOE and GM to challenge university teams to explore vehicle solutions that will minimize energy consumption and reduce emissions.
Year one focused on modeling, simulation, and testing of the powertrain and vehicle subsystems. In years two and three, students integrated their advanced powertrain and subsystems into a 2005 model Chevrolet Equinox. The Equinox is a compact SUV that already provides competitive fuel economy with three basic goals: reduce energy consumption, decrease emissions, and maintain the performance and utility features of the vehicle.
A student reviews an engine design during the
Challenge X competition.
"Our aim with Challenge X is to provide a valuable learning experience that mirrors the real-world development process of automotive control systems and subsystems, and we are happy to mentor the students as they use MATLAB and Simulink in their competition projects," said Jack Little, president and CEO, The MathWorks. "The MathWorks is committed to furthering Model-Based Design, and we are proud to play a role in supporting hands-on engineering education for automobile design."
Competitions are held at the end of each academic year to showcase the teams' learning and vehicle development.
