The emerging field of computational science, at the intersection of math, computer science, and science, offers an interdisciplinary approach to scientific research that is used in industry and academic settings. In order to be prepared for graduate studies and the workplace, students need experience in computational science. The problem at the undergraduate level is a lack of educational materials for computational science.
The goal of this educational materials development project is to create course materials and a curriculum that culminate in a comprehensive, interdisciplinary minor in computational science. A team of faculty members from a variety of disciplines is developing, evaluating, performing in-class testing, and disseminating materials for computational courses in biology, chemistry, environmental science, mathematics, neuroscience, physics, and psychology. The new courses emphasize critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Students in science, math, computer science, and pre-service secondary education are the target audience for this curriculum. Features of the minor include a seminar to encourage involvement by under-represented groups (e.g., women and minorities), core courses in computational science to provide the necessary mathematical and computational background, discipline-specific courses to generate interest and provide direct application of computational science skills, and a capstone collaborative research experience in computational science.
The curricular materials are being site-tested and evaluated at various institutions to enhance their effectiveness and adoption across diverse student populations. Strategies to widely disseminate the proposed materials include publication via the Web and commercial publishers, discipline-specific conference presentations, and hosting a computational science conference.
