| Through funding from the National Science Foundation, the Ohio Board of Regents, and industry, we developed two programs that foster interaction among industrial scientists, engineers, and teachers at the K-12 and university levels. Each program resulted in a wide variety of innovative, hands-on science activities integrating the knowledge and skills gained in the classroom to the technical needs of employers in science-based industries and government.
Partnership for the Advancement of Chemical Technology (PACT)
The Partnership for the Advancement of Chemical Technology (PACT) is a collaboration between schools and industry that is committed to creating a well-educated, chemistry-based technical work force. The program developed numerous industry-based classroom activities covering topics in forensics, pharmacology, genetics, hazardous waste management, and instrumental analysis.
The PACT consortium includes two-year and four-year institutions, school districts, industry, government, professional societies, and the private sector; all of whom share the goal of bringing chemistry and chemical technology education into closer alignment with the skills, methods, problem solving, and content used in today's industrial and governmental laboratories.
Major accomplishments of the PACT consortium include developing the PACT Ambassador Program and conducting the PACT Research Profile Study. The Ambassador Program brought together teams of industry ambassadors, college facilitators, and high school teachers to share industrial chemistry topics with students. As a service to the chemical technology community, the Research Profile Study (results freely available at www.terrificscience.org/programs/pact/profilestudy.jsp.) examined the learning/teaching styles, personality traits, attitudes, and values of chemical technology students and instructors and practicing technicians so that we might better attract and retain students in this field.
Partners for Terrific Science
Partners for Terrific Science (Partners) is an industrial/academic partnership that fostered interaction among industrial scientists and engineers, university chemistry faculty, and classroom teachers to make science education more interesting, relevant, and understandable for all students. The Partners program included teacher workshops covering industrial applications of chemistry and environmental science and health. Materials developed from the program have been compiled into the Science in Our World series of activity-packed books developed in collaboration with prominent pharmaceutical, plastics, food, metals, and cleaning products industries.
A unique team-instruction approach led to the well-documented success of Partners. Each team focused on a particular industry and included an industry scientist, university educator, and high school educator. The well-rounded teams provided a truly integrated educational experience.
Partners programming was supported by the Ohio Chemistry and Technology Council and its more than 100 members, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the Ohio Board of Regents, the American Chemical Society—Cincinnati Section, Miami University, and over 50 private-sector partners.
Industry-Based Science Resources
|
