Fire Safety Meetings in Cambria
This map shows meeting locations for upcoming wildfire awareness and preparedness meeting in Cambria. Photo submitted
The Cambria Fire Department is adding new community meetings designed to enhance wildfire awareness and preparedness throughout Cambria.
“As we continue to face the challenges posed by the threat of wildfires in our region, the Cambria CSD Fire Department is committed to providing resources, education, and support to ensure the safety and resilience of our community,” said Fire Chief Michael Burkey in a letter to the community.
During these interactive meetings, discussions include emergency communication systems, access, transportation during disasters, and fire mitigation strategies for rural properties. These meetings are scheduled by area and are designed to provide an opportunity for collaboration, feedback, and strengthening our community’s preparedness for emergencies.
Attendees can expect to learn about fire safety, including defensible space, vegetation management, best practices for reducing fire risk around your property as well as guidance on creating a family evacuation plan, assembling an emergency kit, and staying informed during a wildfire event. Fire personnel will distribute helpful brochures, checklists, and other tools to support your wildfire readiness efforts.
A list of all meetings can be found at https://bit.ly/43uI4F4
For more information, contact mburkey@cambriacsd.org.
Cuesta Receives Grant for Aviation Maintenance Program
Cuesta College secured a competitive grant of approximately $250,000 from Uplift Central Coast to fund a feasibility study for a permanent facility for its high demand Aviation Maintenance Technician (AVMT) program. The funding is part of a $9 million regional initiative supporting economic growth and sustainability across six counties on the Central Coast.
“This grant will empower Cuesta College to continue transforming aviation and aerospace education in our region,” said Cuesta College Superintendent / President Dr. Jill Stearns in a news release. “Our vision for a state-of-the-art facility will not only create pathways to high-wage careers but also help address the critical shortage of highly skilled technicians on the Central Coast.”
The project will be a collaborative effort between Cuesta College, Cal Poly SLO, and ACI Jet. This partnership will explore synergies between Cuesta College’s AVMT program and Cal Poly’s Aerospace Engineering program, maximizing shared resources, and creating a regional comprehensive aviation education hub.
Currently operating temporarily at ACI Jet’s facilities, Cuesta College’s AVMT program has already demonstrated substantial success. A new permanent home will enable Cuesta College to address the increasing demand for skilled aviation, unmanned systems, and urban mobility; support the region’s 8.3% projected job growth in aerospace technology and related fields; expand access to high-wage technical careers, fostering workforce equity; and strengthen partnerships with leading industry employers
Cuesta College’s proposal was among 36 selected projects out of 136 submissions requesting nearly $50 million in total funding.
Cal Poly Students Practice Physics with Phone and AI
Ever wonder how jittery consuming a can of energy drink or cup of coffee will make you? Or how much distance you cover with your natural gait?
The answers are as close as your cell phone.
For the first time in a full series of labs at Cal Poly, students are using smartphones and an innovative physics curriculum to collect and record data related to motion, force, energy, pressure, velocity and other physical actions.
Physics Department Chair Jennifer Klay collaborated last fall with David Rakestraw, a senior scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area, to launch his Physics with Phones curriculum at Cal Poly.
Rakestraw has developed hundreds of physics experiments for smartphones as well as a guide to performing them. Physics with Phones lesson plans and related artificial intelligence, or AI, applications are being applied in hundreds of high school classrooms and dozens of colleges globally since 2020. As word spreads about the resource, educators at other campuses are considering ways to introduce smartphone instruction into even more classrooms.
Klay said that using smartphones saves schools money while reaching and engaging even more students on a device they are familiar with.
Cal Poly students are using the new curriculum in experiments to measure changes in hand tremors before and after consuming energy drinks. In addition, they have learned to assess walking distances based on foot motions and angles, lessons with applications in healthcare and veterinary science, Klay said.
Lab activities are designed so that each student is responsible for individual measurements with his or her own smartphone or a class loaner.
Besides physics, which will continue to use the phone-related curriculum at Cal Poly, other disciplines such as kinesiology and engineering may incorporate the technology in the classroom.
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