This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Phase II Noyce Scholarship project is providing twelve $10,000 scholarships annually to junior and senior STEM majors seeking a career in secondary science or mathematics teaching, leading to 40 new teachers.
High needs partner school districts are Sunnyside Unified School District (in Tucson) and the Tucson Unified School District. Teachers from these school districts serve on the project's Faculty Advisory Group. Among the duties of the advisory group are holding small group interviews with scholarship applicants and selection of scholarship awardees.
Summer internships are available to freshmen and sophomore STEM majors expressing an interest in a teaching career. Examples of the camps are "The Science Detectives" and "Tucson Sweetness: Honey from the Tucson Desert." The former is a forensics science experience involving the Arizona Research Labs, the Tucson Police Department Crime Lab, Pima County Superior Court and the Human Origins Genotyping Laboratory. The latter is working with the Native American Summer Institute, a joint endeavor by two tribal units, the Bee Center and the university. Participants learn principles of economics, biology of bees, dynamics of the hive and mechanisms of colony migration. They work at an apiary at the San Xavier Farm Coop and bottle honey for sale under the name, "Tucson Sweetness: Honey from the Tucson Desert." The project supports the Noyce Scholars' professional development with regard to their awareness and acknowledgement of the factors that challenge high need students' opportunities to receive a quality education. Research associated with the project is contributing to the knowledge base on STEM teachers' perspectives on teaching and learning in high need schools.
