Partners for this Track 1 project include George Mason University (GMU), Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), and the Fairfax and Prince County Public Schools. The partnership between NOVA and GMU is designed to insure that NOVA students have a smooth transition into the program at GMU and to encourage them to both major in a science and seek a teaching credential in a STEM field. The project offers Undergraduate Learning Assistantships to sophomores and second semester freshman at both GMU and NOVA (a total of 50 at GMU and 83 at NOVA), Noyce Scholarships to junior and senior STEM majors interested in becoming secondary school STEM teachers (a total of 36) and a streamlined process for Noyce Fellows to gain teacher certification.
Intellectual Merit: The project is modeled after a highly successful Noyce project at the University of Colorado Boulder and takes advantage of an existing project at George Mason established to increase the number of STEM majors recruited retained and graduated, The College of Science Accelerator Program (a program that includes the Departments of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, and Forensic Sciences).
Broader Impact: The broader impacts of the project are its potential, through a Learning Assistants Program that includes specific attention to teaching at both the university and K-12 level, to set a model for involving students early in their academic career in a program that both adds to their content knowledge in STEM and to their interest and skills in teaching STEM.
