Physical Scientists in K-14 Math and Science Education

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This award provides NSF support to continue an experiment that utilizes the very large population of STEM professionals in New Mexico (third per capita among all states) to help improve K-14 math and science education in the Santa Fe area, and to raise the profile of math and science in the community. This experiment, a partnership between the Santa Fe Alliance for Science (SFAFS) and the Santa Fe Public Schools (SFPS), began in May, 2005. In 2010, the partnership was extended to include Santa Fe Community College (SFCC), and in 2011 the University of New Mexico (Department of Physics and Astronomy) became the managing partner. The essential questions that this experiment seeks to answer are: (1) How can this resource of STEM professionals be utilized to make effective change happen? (2) How can this group of highly trained content experts in math and science be molded into an effective pedagogical entity? (3) How can existing educational modalities be modified, or reshaped, to take advantage of this talent pool? (4) How can these specially skilled individuals help create greater student and public interest in the beauty, power and value of math and science, and bring these ideas to all segments of our community? (5) How can the social and political issues that will certainly arise be dealt with most effectively? SFAFS's broad goal is to help K-14 students succeed in math and science so that they have the skills necessary to choose from a variety of careers. SFAFS has built an effort that brings greatly enriched math and science content to a large number of students, parents and teachers in Santa Fe. Thus the enormous math and science content knowledge accumulated by SFAFS volunteers during their careers has a rewarding "second life" as a knowledge base and inspiration for a widely diverse demographic of students.