Monday, October 18, 2010

Science Education for Today, Focusing on Adults in Rural Libraries


Link to October 18 Nashua (NH) Telegraph article, "Dartmouth project takes science to rural libraries".

Excerpt: Efforts to boost science education usually focus on kids in classrooms, but two Dartmouth College professors are targeting a different population, in a different place: adults in rural libraries.

Daniel Rockmore, who teaches math and computer science, and Marcelo Gleiser, who teaches physics and astronomy, recently were awarded $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation for a project designed to get people interested in the scientific process and how science affects their daily lives. The professors chose rural libraries as the setting because they often are the social centers of small towns far away from science museums.

“The whole thing is about finding an on-ramp into science for people who weren’t even looking to get on the highway,” Rockmore said. “When everybody thinks about science education, it’s always a ‘next generation’ or ‘tomorrow’ kind of thing. But the fact is, we shouldn’t forget about today. That’s not a lost generation.”
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