Current Events

November, 2012 - DRS. BENNETT AND ODAGO RECEIVE TABLET INNOVATION GRANT 

In November, 2012, Jacqueline Bennett and Maurice Odago of the Chemistry and Biochemstry Department were awarded a $24,000 grant for the exploration of tablet technology in the classroom. The grant program was developed jointly by IT Services and Academic Affairs to investigate the impact of mobile devices on teaching and learning. It is anticipated that the round-the-clock access to tablets and multimedia content will enhance student learning and yield repeatable methodology for their use in other classrooms.

Click here to read more.

June 3, 2009

NSF AWARDS SUNY ONEONTA $900,000 FOR SCHOLARSHIPS AND
INTENSIVE TRAINING TO PREPARE NEW SCIENCE TEACHERS

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $900,000 to the SUNY College at Oneonta to support the SUNY Oneonta Noyce Scholars Program, which will help prepare students for careers as highly qualified high school science teachers in high-need school districts. Dr. Paul Bischoff of the SUNY Oneonta Secondary Education Department will coordinate the grant with Dr. John Schaumloffel of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, Dr. James Ebert and Todd Ellis of the Earth Science Department and Dr. Paul French of the Physics and Astronomy Department.

The SUNY Oneonta Noyce Scholars Program will recruit students as incoming freshmen or sophomores who are majoring in the sciences and offer them intensive training beyond the College's Adolescence Education majors in science. In return for participating in the program and meeting its high academic standards, the students will receive scholarships valued at over $13,000 annually to cover the costs of tuition, fees, and room and board.

The goal of the program is to graduate 24 highly qualified new science teachers by the end of the five-year grant period. The participating faculty members have developed an enhanced curriculum that focuses on experiential learning and observation in high-need rural and urban school districts and provides experiences in science education outside the traditional classroom. The students will graduate with degrees in both Adolescence Education and their chosen science discipline of Biology, Earth Sciences, Chemistry, or Physics.
During their time at SUNY Oneonta, the Noyce Scholars will serve in both high-need urban and rural districts through summer experiences in New York City schools and academic-year and summer experiences in rural schools in central New York. They will also undertake specialized coursework and gain experience with informal science education at the SUNY Oneonta Science Discovery Center and College Observatory, nationally recognized science museums, and other venues. The College will provide on-campus pre-service and post-graduation in-service support for the Noyce Scholars to help guide them through their first years of teaching.
As part of the grant, the SUNY Oneonta faculty members and Noyce Scholars will collaborate with a number of local schools.

More information about the National Science Foundation grant and the SUNY Oneonta Noyce Scholars program is available from Dr. Bischoff at (607) 436-2613.

August 27, 2009

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION GRANT TO ENHANCE CHEMISTRY CURRICULUM AT SUNY ONEONTA

The National Science Foundation, through its Course Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement Program, has awarded a grant of $164,753 to the SUNY College at Oneonta to support the introduction of computational chemistry to the College’s chemistry curriculum through a graduated approach. The project, which is entitled PREDICT for "Predicting Results and Evaluating Data using Insights from Computational Techniques," will be coordinated by Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty members Jacqueline Bennett as principal investigator, and Kelly Gallagher and Trudy Thomas-Smith as co-principal investigators.

PREDICT is designed to facilitate students’ ability to transfer and develop skills throughout the entire undergraduate chemistry curriculum from general chemistry through advanced courses. Activities will combine hands-on experimental components with in-depth complementary computational exercises to demonstrate how microscopic phenomena lead to larger properties. Chemistry students will gain an enhanced understanding of the nature of matter by using computational chemistry to visualize molecular properties and processes.

Through the grant, Drs. Bennett, Gallagher, and Thomas-Smith will also share the educational materials that they develop through the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department website and through the National Science Digital Library database. Materials for non-chemistry majors will be shared with local educators through the Science Discovery Center at SUNY Oneonta.

PREDICT is expected to reach more than 750 individual students each academic year, including approximately 115 pre-service teachers at SUNY Oneonta. The materials will help non-chemistry majors visualize the microscopic interactions of matter, which will improve their scientific literacy and help them develop.

See the SUNY Research Foundation announcement of PREDICT