This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)
The SUNY Oneonta Noyce Scholars Program is a unique collaboration between Oneonta's Adolescence Science Education Program and the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences and Physics. The project is to increase the number of Adolescence Education-Science dual-major graduates by twenty-four. These twenty-four individuals are graduating as certified high school science teachers and are teaching in high-need rural or urban schools. Graduating with full-content degrees in both Adolescence Education and their chosen science discipline (Biology, Earth Sciences, Chemistry or Physics), SUNY Oneonta Noyce Scholars will be prepared to meet the needs of our nation in developing a national culture of scientific literacy. The intellectual merit of this project is based in the unique perspective these students gain from service in high-need districts, facilitated by summer experiences in urban school districts in New York City, and by academic-year and summer experiences in rural districts within SUNY Oneonta's geographic area. This is bolstered by specialized coursework in both pedagogy and science content, as well as experience with informal science education at the SUNY Oneonta Science Discovery Center and College Observatory. The project's broader impacts include the preparation of at least twenty-four new teachers during the project period, a sustainable forty percent increase in the number of certified high school science teachers graduating from SUNY Oneonta annually. Additionally, on-campus pre-service and post-graduation in-service support for teachers helps guide them through the first years of their professional experiences in the classroom. This will lead to greater retention of, and success for, these teachers as they serve in challenging, high-need districts.
