Keck Foundation Proposal

September 18, 2005

This document is a set of ideas and talking points, developed by Science Divison/Science Friday group, concerning what types of support Earlham might approach the W.M. Keck Foundation for.

Broadly speaking we see two areas of approach, which may or may not be mutally exclusive:

• Facilities. Astronomy and outreach are two recurring themes in Keck's history. Given the museum's track-record, and the outreach potential for a planitarium, it seems logical that we should explore how they might help with our upcoming facilities project. Ray's plan for the planitarium is to use digital technology which would allow it to be used for a variety of science displays.
• Interdisciplinary science curriculum modules tied to on-going student-faculty research projects across the natural sciences. These interdisciplinary research projects would build on the foundation provided for by our recent HHMI grant. More about this idea can be found below.

Background material related to Keck and these proposals:

• Keck's criteria from their programatic guidelines.
• Questions and FAQ.
• Things to do.

Interdisciplinary Science Curriculum Modules

This project will focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and curriculum development among the natural and physical sciences departments at Earlham College, including biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and geology. It is clear that cutting-edge scientific research is becoming more interdisciplinary and collaborative at all levels; therefore, it is essential to train our students to develop multi-faceted approaches to problem solving. This project will introduce an important scientific problem and ask students to collect and analyze data, as well as make interpretations, using different disciplinary perspectives in both coursework and independent research projects with faculty. We believe this idea of collaborative learning will transform our undergraduate curriculum in the sciences and provide a model for interdisciplinary curricula for other liberal arts colleges.

In choosing the scientific problem around which to construct this project, we have tried to generate topics centered around faculty expertise, student interest, and local impact. We anticipate that if this approach is successful, both scientifically and educationally, we would be able to expand topics to reflect the changing interests of students, faculty, and the community. Therefore, our selection of the research problem is purposefully flexible, although any topic must meet the following explicit criteria:

• It must be broadly relevant to the scientific community (research results should be publishable in more than one venue).
• It must be easily adapted to both student/faculty research and the undergraduate science curriculum.
• It must involve field work, laboratory work, and computational analysis.
• It must be interdisciplinary in nature.
• It must have local impact or be important to the local community.

We have considered two topics that meet the above criteria as themes with which to begin the development of this project:

• Pesticides: Building on local expertise developed in studying the concentration and effects of atrazine in groundwater, we would propose studying pesticides in the Richmond area. Possible areas of investigation might include determination of concentrations, computational modeling of distribution, effects on area plant and animal life, and evaluation of pesticide degradation products. We propose to do our studies in Clear Creek, adjacent to and running through Earlham's campus. Among other things this local connection will enable us to easily integrate the field work into lab classes.

• Metals: The environmental impact of local industry and geology on ground water sources would be studied using such methods computational modeling, analytical techniques, and effects/evidence of metal uptake by plants or aquatic life. Again we could employ Clear Creek as our study site.

Outcomes:

• Research projects and curriculum modules for a variety of introductory and upper-level classes.
• For science and non-science majors, a better understanding of both computational and experimental research methods, model development and verification, and interdisciplinary science research. For example, students in both majors and non-majors versions of general chemistry should come away with some understanding of how computational methods, chemistry, biology, and geology, work together to deepen our understanding of the problem.
• Science outreach activities for local K-12 students and teachers. Earlham's Joseph Moore Museum has developed a significant outreach program for local school districts in the natural sciences. We propose to develop an analog to that program, based on the project theme, for science more generally.
• Introduce students to scientific problems which incorporate local and regional issues and resources.

Selling points:

• Computational methods are now an important part of basic research in all of the natural sciences, yet few undergraduate programs have such components. Earlham is very well positioned to develop a template for incorporating computational methods into science curricula, e.g. our interdisciplinary approach and the high percentage of our graduates that go on to earn Ph.D.s in a science.
• It is difficult to obtain funding from government agencies, e.g. the NSF, for cross disciplinary work such as we describe here. This puts Keck in a somewhat unique position as a sponsor for this project.