“CEDAR’s strong dedication to K-12 students is one of the reasons this will be a terrific partnership for the Kentucky Coal Academy,” said KCA Executive Director Gary Whisman. “Students in the 12-county CEDAR program (Breathitt, Floyd, Harlan, Johnson, Knott, Lawrence, Leslie, Letcher, Magoffin, Martin, Perry and Pike counties) will be able to take advantage of the curriculum CEDAR offers, which teach transferable skills that can be used in a variety of trades.”
These opportunities include the Coal Study Unit program, providing teachers the opportunity to use their skills in creating, developing and implementing lesson plans about coal in their classroom, in one or more of seven core content areas of science, math, English/literature, art, music, technology/multimedia, and/or social studies; the CEDAR Coal Fair, providing students the opportunity to investigate certain aspects of coal and apply their findings to showcase their talent and knowledge by creating a coal project and entering it in one of the seven core contents; and the Mars Invasion 2030 program, a classroom curriculum and interactive learning opportunity challenging fourth grade students to imagine the task of being the first humans to colonize Mars.
“In addition to the previously mentioned opportunities, CEDAR is also happy to partner with the Kentucky Coal Academy to enable its eastern Kentucky programs at Big Sandy Community and Technical College, Hazard Community and Technical College and Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College to implement an Entrepreneurial Coal Lands Redevelopment program,” said CEDAR President and Executive Director John Justice. “This program will engage high school students to identify either an abandoned or reclaimed mine site; idled industry infrastructure or asset; then, through investigation and research, propose a new use and business model.”
These projects aim to provide solutions to employment opportunities through a business enterprise, adding value to the quality of life for the residents of the area, and to explore possible new uses for coal, building businesses to bring new processes to the market or products to provide employment opportunities, especially for unemployed coal miners.
