Foundation backs university’s goal to improve science education
Posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas’ flagship campus has landed a nearly $ 7 million National Science Foundation grant designed to improve science education in elementary and secondary schools.
The $ 6, 988, 927 grant will allow UA’s Fayetteville campus, in partnership with the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith’s College of Education, to work with 33 school districts in Arkansas and Oklahoma, said Lynn Fisher, spokesman for the Fayetteville campus’ J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
The universities will help teachers in kindergarten through 12 th grade prepare students for college-level courses in physics and other sciences, technology, engineering and math.
The initiative is called “College Ready In Math and Physics Partnership.” “Through such a concentrated outreach effort, we hope to help increase retention and graduation rates from high school through college,” William Schwab, Fulbright College’s interim dean, said in a statement.
UAFS’ portion of the grant totals $ 928, 315, said its spokesman, Sondra LaMar.
The program leader is Gay Stewart, associate professor in Fulbright’s physics department, along with Bernard Madison, professor in Fulbright’s math department.
Kathy Scheibel, assistant director for UA-Fayetteville’s research support and sponsored programs office, said the National Science Foundation grant is the largest for any of the campus’s academicians or researchers so far this fiscal year.
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