APPLICATIONS

The Shodor Education Foundation and North Carolina Central University announced a $2.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to open a new Pathway to the National Science Digital Library, NSF's online library of resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The new grant will fund the four-year efforts of a national collaboration led by Dr. Robert M. Panoff, President and Executive Director of Shodor, and Dr. Marilyn McClelland, Professor of Computer Information Systems in the School of Business at NCCU. The National Science Foundation created the Pathways Projects to create user- tailored access to the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). These Pathways will make it simpler for teachers, students, and life-long learners to take full advantage of the new bridge between math, science, and education in a context that makes sense for them. "There are some exciting possibilities for new library services," says Lee Zia, NSF program manager for the NSDL. "They may include one-stop user access to personalized resources, improved student and teacher access to expert knowledge, with the Pathways projects serving as discipline area experts." NSF is looking to Shodor and the other new Pathways to help solve some of the underlying design issues for the whole NSDL project that has grown rapidly in recent years. An operational site for NSDL (http://www.nsdl.org) was launched in December 2002 supporting teaching and learning at all levels, from preschool through adult, with materials ranging from journal articles and lesson plans to interactive animations, and from real-time data sets to technology based tools. With more than 150 NSF-funded projects that contribute to the NSDL, as well as partners from education and industry, some users have found it hard to find what they were looking for. "The social and technical capital generated by the Pathways will be reused to facilitate completion of all the moving parts of the library over time," Zia added. The expanded partnership will extend Shodor's Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD: http://www.shodor.org/refdesk ) to identify, develop, and sustain effective curricula and interactive explorations for computational science education at all education levels. New partners will bring in expertise to create and maintain resources in computational science education, such as easy navigation tools to find and use numerical models to teach and explore concepts in science and mathematics, and resources for teaching how to build and validate computational models. Currently celebrating its tenth anniversary, Shodor maintains research and learning space on Broad Street in Durham, conducting research and educational outreach to advance science and mathematics education using numerical models, data visualization, and computer simulations. Scientists and educators work with Shodor to integrate materials development, faculty enhancement, and student enrichment to apply computational science tools and technologies to all learning levels. Shodor has developed a special focus and expertise on undergraduate education and teacher preparation. "We are very grateful to NSF for both the significant financial support and for the vote of confidence," said Dr. Robert M. Panoff, a computational physicist who founded Shodor in 1994. "We feel a deep responsibility has been entrusted to us for building and maintaining this new 'wing' of our nation's Digital Library," he continued, "We have built a truly wonderful team for a great project and to have achieved such national recognition for our local efforts." Panoff added that CSERD will promote better research and better education while opening a digital portal to life long learning. "We can now harness interactive tools, computer simulations, and data visualization as both content and method across the curriculum." The NSDL Pathways grant from NSF is the second major award in three years to Shodor and its partners in the area of computational science education. In 2001, NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education awarded a $2.7M National Dissemination grant to support the National Computational Science Institute (NCSI), which offers in-person and on-line workshops and resources for hundreds of undergraduate faculty across the country. NCSI is the only program in computational science that specifically targets teams of faculty from predominantly undergraduate institutions, Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), and community colleges whose students are either the next generation of scientists and engineers, the next generation of K-12 teachers, or both. Nearly one thousand college faculty across the country have participated in NCSI workshops, and this virtual community was cited by the NSF reviewers as one of the strengths of the CSERD project. Among the NCSI alumni are dozens of faculty from many of the campuses of the UNC system and the NC Community College System. One campus to take advantage of this faculty training has been North Carolina Central University. NCCU and Shodor have been active collaborators for almost as long as Shodor has been in existence, in particular, developing on- line courses from Braille to Computational Chemistry. With a new degree program in computational science, Shodor and Central will be working even closer together, according to Chancellor James H. Ammons. "As we begin to plan and design a bachelor's degree in computational science, our involvement in this grant will strongly influence the development of the curriculum for our program. The accessibility of the National Science Digital Library will provide unmatched opportunities for our students to interact with other researchers and maintain a competitive edge in their studies of math, science, engineering and technology." The expanded partnership between Shodor involves NCCU faculty directing important aspects of the new project. Co-principal investigator, Dr. Marilyn McClelland, will lead the development of the internal design for CSERD, and Shawn Sendlinger, Professor of Chemistry, will serve as one of the senior content editors. "NCCU has had a fruitful, long-term relationship with Shodor and specifically Dr. Panoff," said Dr. McClelland. "I first participated in a Shodor sponsored workshop in 1997 with several other NCCU faculty, and others have benefited from Shodor's computational science workshops in the last few years. We have all incorporated teaching strategies learned from those workshops into our classes with effective results for our students. Through CSERD and the NSDL, we will share our successes with others." McClelland also mentioned other aspects of the Shodor-NCCU collaboration, including Shodor staff teaching in Summer Ventures, mentoring NCCU student interns, and generously providing reviews and advice for research projects. CSERD's implementation plan has students actively building their own future learning environments. Undergraduate students from NCCU, NC State, Duke, Elon, Meredith, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with a number of talented high school students, are already working through the Mentor Center @ Shodor. As interns assisting scientists and educators, they are developing, reviewing, and maintaining the web-based materials for the Reference Desk. "We are pleased that the Fund has been able to support Shodor's well-trained interns who are researching, collecting, and evaluating computational education materials that can be made available to science teachers throughout the country," says Enriqueta Bond, Ph.D., president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a private foundation based in North Carolina and the lead funder of Shodor's internship program. Bond added, "This award from NSF is a good example of leveraging local support to take high quality education materials developed by students and teachers across the Research Triangle to the national level." Dr. Gerald L. Boarman, President of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) also recognized the importance of real-world internships for the NCSSM students working at Shodor alongside students from Durham, Wake, Orange, and Chapel Hill schools. "We salute the success of Shodor on this new project. Shodor has provided computational chemistry classes and intern opportunities for our young scholars, and we look forward to expanding our partnerships," said Boarman. "The resources of the NSDL will provide our science and math students easy access to valuable scientific, modeling. and database resources." Gaining experience as an intern in computational science proved important for Kirstin Riesbeck now works in the Division of Science and Technology of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after graduating from UNC-CH and NCSSM. Riesbeck, who interned at Shodor as a student for three years and then worked full-time for a year before entering government service. She sent word this week from a meeting in New Mexico with her Japanese counterparts, "The entire workshop I am attending is focused on computer modeling and simulation of natural and man-made disasters. I wish the Shodor staff and students could see that they are really heading in the right direction! What you are teaching the faculty and students is exactly what is needed in the science community." Dr. David Joiner, a newly-minted assistant professor at Kean University in New Jersey is a key partner in the CSERD, having helped write the program plan while a post-doctoral researcher at Shodor. Through its newly established New Jersey Center for Science and Technology Education, Kean University seeks to transform teacher education in science and mathematics and fill a significant need within the State for skillful and talented scientists through innovative, scholarship-based, integrated 5-year BS/MS programs. Joiner believes this project will be an important part of his work at Kean, noting, "The Computational Science Education Reference Desk is both a product and service. It is a resource for teaching and learning that we will help build and then use ourselves." Congressman David Price of the Fourth Congressional District in North Carolina has been one of Shodor's and NSF's strongest supporters at the national level. "The importance of math, science, and technology education to our country's economic prosperity and national security cannot be overstated," said Price in a statement released by his office. "If we are to maintain our unique status as the world leader in scientific and technological innovation, we must act now to make sure that STEM programs are adequately funded and the digital divide is narrowed. The National Science Foundation's new Pathways program takes a giant step in this direction, and I couldn't be prouder that the Shodor Foundation has been selected to play a major role. After ten years of outstanding service to the local community and the State of North Carolina, Shodor has become one of our nation's leading innovators in bringing science and math into the classroom." CSERD will become a curricular repository for several Shodor collaborations. Interactive models and simulations being developed in partnership with the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham will be readily accessible in the Reference Desk. Likewise, lesson plans and models will also be harvested from other NSF-funded projects, including the National Computational Science Leadership Program (NCSLP) administered by East Carolina University. Ernie Marshburn, NCSLP project manager, stated, "We are pleased that the NCSLP materials developed during our program will become a part of targeted collections of CSERD and NSDL. This new Pathway represents a valuable resource both for providing materials supporting science/math education and for disseminating materials like the NCSLP lessons to interested math and science teachers nation-wide." Besides the strong North Carolina presence, the CSERD leadership team hails from several US States and includes Dennis E. Stevenson, Clemson University, South Carolina; Scott Lathrop, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois; Robert T. McLaughin, National Institute for Community Innovations, Vermont, Julie Foertsch, LEAD Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; and Steve Gordon, Ohio Supercomputer Center, OHIO. In addition, Holly P. Hirst and Daniel D. Warner - mathematics professors at Appalachian State University and Clemson, respectively - will lead a national advisory committee of scientists and educators. "Clemson is just as proud of our work to help K-12 science teachers as we are of producing top-quality graduates," said Thomas M. Keinath, dean of the College of Engineering and Science at Clemson University. "We are honored to be working with Shodor on this grant. They have blazed trails in using computers and models to inspire teachers, and students, by showing them just how much fun math and science can be and how they relate to our everyday lives." The National Institute for Community Innovations (NICI) develops innovative technologies that enhance student learning and the sharing of proven practices among educators. From its headquarters in Vermont, NICI has pioneered creation of advanced web-based tools that make it easy to link research and practice. For instance, NICI tools enable experts to catalog and publish information about educational strategies that research has shown to improve student achievement. "We are excited," NICI's executive director Robert McLaughlin explained, "about the opportunity to support CSERD's efforts to interact with state and local educational leaders nationwide to identify their priorities for improving K12 student results in mathematics and science." CSERD will then identify new and existing resources in their Pathway and, more broadly, in the National Science Digital Library, that are relevant to these concerns. "Together," said McLaughlin, "NICI and CSERD will then disseminate these resources in direct response to educators' needs." Shodor is a longtime partner with the Education, Outreach, and Training component of the Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (EOT- PACI). Through this relationship the CSERD team will utilize technologies being developed for high-performance parallel computing, and remote collaboration, as well as grid technologies. For instance, scientists at the NCSA and the Ohio Supercomputer Center will work with educators to adapt computer models used in research as interactive learning environments for education. "This pathways project is a wonderful collaboration among a number of EOT-PACI partners and national collaborations," said Professor Roscoe Giles of Boston University and Co-Chair of the national EOT-PACI. The team will provide a highly successful approach, he added, for the validation and verification of science resources; will demonstrate a process for engaging educators in aligning the resources to classroom learning; and will provide a model for sustainable libraries for the education community. "As a result of the team's commitment, experience and knowledge," Giles continued, CSERD's efforts will contribute significantly to the mission and goals of the National Science Digital Library program, and make all of us connected with the EOT-PACI program very proud." One challenge for the Computational Science Education Reference Desk is getting scientists and educators from around the country to feel more responsible for the quality of the materials in the NSDL and to contribute their expertise and time to develop, review, modify, and adapt resources. The CSERD project will be aided by Shodor's partnership with Sigma Xi, the scientific research society whose headquarters are in Research Triangle Park. Currently, Shodor conducts computational science education workshops at Sigma Xi Chapters around the country, and Shodor and Sigma Xi share interns through NCSI and the Mentor Center projects. Dr. Patrick D. Scully, Executive Director of Sigma Xi, praised Shodor as a catalyst aligning scientific research and education practice. Said Scully, "I can think of no other organization that has so successfully devoted the resources of its staff, teachers, and the community to the promotion and use of computational tools in the classroom, and they have done this in a way that leads to a deeper and broader understanding of science." Sculley committed his organization to help with the dissemination effort, saying, "Sigma Xi will be very pleased to to keep our 70,000 members, most of whom work with students at all academic levels, informed about the progress of Shodor and other contributors to the National Science Digital Library." "High-speed and highly-reliable networking will be an important criteria for supporting the new addition to the digital library," said Panoff, noting that Shodor's web materials are already being downloaded at a rate of more than 1.5M pages per month, and have been growing at a rate of about three percent per week. A special grant from the University of North Carolina Office of the President enables Shodor to be connected to the fiber network managed by the North Carolina Research and Education network (NCREN) to support the heavier demands for materials and to facilitate video conferencing with collaborators on CSERD and other teams working on NSDL projects. Besides CSERD, NSF announced this week three other significant awards to support new Pathways to the NSDL. Ranging from $2.0M to $2.8M, the other grant recipients are the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Internet Scout Project (http://scout.wisc.edu/); WGBH (Boston) Teachers Domain - Multimedia Resources for the Classroom and Professional Development (http://www.teachersdomain.org/); and The Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Washington, D.C., Pathway to NSDL Mathematics Resources (http://www.maa.org/). The MAA project has a strong North Carolina connection with retired Duke mathematics professor Lawrence Moore serving as principal investigator. NSF has also funded 19 new, smaller nationwide NSDL projects, varying in amounts of $450,000 to $850,000. The National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.58 billion.