UMass Amherst Introduces New Integrated Sciences Education Program
Aug. 27, 2010
| Contact: | Janet Lathrop 413/545-0444 |
AMHERST, Mass. - Incoming undergraduates interested in pursuing a science major at UMass Amherst will be able to choose a completely new, enhanced science education program believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. It will teach science "the way it is really done," and "emphasize the reason people become scientists in the first place, which is to solve problems," says Justin Fermann, a program coordinator and senior lecturer in chemistry.
It’s true that many colleges and universities offer interdisciplinary science majors, but none offers a comprehensive, integrated "vertical" approach to science education through all four undergraduate years, say Fermann and Scott Auerbach, leaders of the integrated concentration in science program, or iCons. The UMass Amherst concentrations will integrate multiple science disciplines in each course on four themes: renewable energy, biomedicine, climate change and clean water.
Auerbach and Fermann believe iCons is "absolutely unique in the United States. No one else has anything like it." Typically, universities have taught in isolated "silos"--chemistry, biology, physics. And, iCons students still will be required to complete many of these traditional core courses. But in the new approach, a student might graduate as a chemistry major with an iCons concentration in climate change, for example, or a biology major with a concentration in energy. No other program ties four undergraduate years together to integrate core subject learning with problem-solving, say the designers.
"As science educators, we feel compelled to ask how well we’re preparing our students to thrive in a world that’s facing daunting technological problems in areas such as renewable energy, climate change, drug design and clean drinking water," they explain. There’s new recognition of the value--for creativity and innovation--of encouraging students in different majors to rub shoulders in an atmosphere of scientific inquiry. This program is rich enough to keep the most creative and advanced students engaged and enthusiastic by allowing them to tackle real-world questions.
The iCons curriculum will be a 12- to 15-credit concentration across four years, with approximately 60 students to be admitted each semester beginning this fall. This group will take their first class, an introduction featuring case studies in selected theme areas, in spring 2011. They’ll go on to take iCons scientific debate and communications in the sophomore year, a laboratory project course in the junior year and capstone research in the senior year.
The iCons program will benefit from access to comprehensive analytical chemistry, instrumental analysis, genomics, bioimaging and related laboratories in the campus’s new state-of-the-art Integrated Sciences Building (ISB), finished in 2009. Likewise, the energy concentration will rely on special instrumentation available at the Massachusetts Center of Renewable Energy Science and Technology’s (MassCREST) charge transfer lab.
Funding for the new iCons program comes from a $100,000 gift from alumnus Richard Mahoney, a major donor to the ISB, to jump-start curriculum that makes full use of the building’s extraordinary capabilities, plus $50,000 from the UMass Amherst Provost’s Office for academic planning, $60,000 from the Chancellor’s Revenue-Generating Initiative and $50,000 from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences. This last grant supports seed programs that advance the chemical sciences; iCons is one of 13 such awards given by the foundation in 2010.
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