Keck-phase-1-summary

1. Abstract [150 words]:

Provide an executive summary of the project, including overall goal, methodology and significance, for a lay audience.

2. Unique Aspects:

Describe unique or distinctive aspects of this project.

Four aspects of our project work together to make it powerful and unique: 1) our focus on local problems; 2) the combined use of field, laboratory, and computational methods; 3) the longitudinal involvement of students as they take introductory through upper-level science classes; and 4) showing students how modern science is multidisciplinary with teams of scientists who inform and illuminate the different disciplinary perspectives of a problem.

This project will bridge the gap between modern scientific research and science education by incorporating research modules into courses and further developing multidisciplinary summer research activity. These research modules will be integrated into courses beginning with the introductory courses in chemistry, biology, geosciences, statistics, and computer science and will become increasingly complex in upper level courses in these disciples. Both course modules and summer research projects will focus on a problem of local concern and include laboratory, field, and computational modeling components.

3. Key Personnel:

Name the key personnel, and describe their credentials, role in the proposed project, and any collaborations/partnerships.

• Chemistry
  • Michael Deibel
  • Corinne Deibel (Associate Professor of chemistry, Ph.D. Radioanalytical Chemistry, University of Kentucky, 1995). Dr. Deibel will be incorporating the newly designed teaching modules in general and analytical chemistry. She has been supervising Undergraduate Research projects in analytical chemistry since 1998.

• Geosciences
  • Ron Parker
  • Meg Streepey (Assistant Professor of Geosciences, Ph.D. University of Michigan, 2001). Dr. Streepey will be creating and implementing teaching modules in introductory geoscience courses and working on the integration of those modules. She has previous experience working as an interdisciplinary curriculum developer at the undergraduate level.

Biology

• • David Matlack
  • John Iverson

• Computer Science
  • Charlie Peck

Other science faculty: Lori Watson (chem), Mark Stocksdale (chem), Mic Jackson (math)(?), Meg Streepy (geology), which represents n% of the science faculty.

For examples of how we collaborate see URL. Merck, HHMI.

=4. Budget:= Describe how funds requested from WMKF will be allocated among capital, personnel and equipment. Percentage for each area.

=5. Justification for WMKF support:= Explain why support from the W. M. Keck Foundation is essential for this project.

The W.M. Keck Foundation is known and respected throughout the scientific community as a Foundation that supports innovative science programs at high-quality undergraduate institutions. A WMK grant would provide the start-up funds that would allow Earlham to launch its multidisciplinary science project. Keck support for Earlham's proposed multidisciplinary program would raise the visibility of the sciences at Earlham within the College and also nationally. In addition, we believe that WMK support would help Earlham garner major gifts from alumni, and forge additional corporate and foundation partnerships for future, sustained funding.