TIDES Helps Others Learn Science through Discovery
Not even a year old, the Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science is opening its doors this summer to spread a message beyond the 40 acres about teaching through discovery.
Not even a year old, the Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science is opening its doors this summer to spread a message beyond the 40 acres about teaching through discovery.
The Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin has been awarded a $12.7 million contract by the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity to advance math education for children on U.S. military bases.
A Department of Astronomy outreach program achieved the culmination of 17 years of hard work recently when several Texas teachers flew as part of the science team aboard NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
Exposing first-year college students to real research experiences alongside faculty scientists is something The University of Texas at Austin has been doing for a decade now through the Freshman Research Initiative.
Every week, as Sneha Patel stood in front of the roughly 20 freshmen she mentored and gave tips on how to navigate college, she would see a lot of heads nodding—but not in the back of the room. There sat one girl, always with her headphones on, not participating. Patel was surprised when the student signed up for one of the individual sessions she offered to each of her mentees. She probably won't even show up, Patel thought. When the student did arrive for her meeting, she was very quiet at first. Then something shifted.
Jacob Heiling (BS '13) was already interested in biology when he started working as a greenhouse assistant at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory (BFL) as an undergraduate. The time he spent watching butterflies interact in the greenhouse sparked his interest in studying species interactions, and that led to an independent research project on the chemical ecology of bird-dispersed fruits.
The College of Natural Sciences is launching a home for its current and future programs in innovative undergraduate science education, the Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science (TIDES). TIDES was proposed in the CNS 2013 Strategic Plan (as the Texas Center for Science Discovery) as a way to continue and enhance the college’s leading role in STEM education.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has awarded a $2.4 million grant to The University of Texas at Austin to expand its Freshman Research Initiative, a program that gives students the opportunity to take part in advanced research projects early in their academic careers.