Executive Summary

The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc., seeks support from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to significantly expand Project SUCCEED, a coordinated, supplemental education program for North Carolina students to collaborate with practicing scientists in innovative, inquiry-based, experiential science research and exploration. SUCCEED stands for Stimulating Understanding of Computational science through Collaboration, Exploration, Experiment, and Discovery. SUCCEED helps students recognize and develop the attributes and skills that will prepare them to become leaders in 21st century science, mathematics, and technology.

The Foundation is particularly qualified to provide these experiences. We are a North Carolina non-profit education and research corporation dedicated to reform and improvement of mathematics and science education by appropriate incorporation of computational and communication technologies. Our strength is the development of innovative approaches that involve students themselves in the process of science as it is carried out today through modern computational and communication tools, techniques, and technologies. The projects and materials we have developed have been repeatedly recognized as being among the best in computational science education; most recently, in 1996 we were named one of six Foundation Partners of the National Science Foundation for the revitalization of undergraduate education.

From our offices in Durham, North Carolina, we work over the Internet with teachers and students across the United States and around the world on a variety of exciting science and mathematics research and development projects. With support from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the expansion of the SUCCEED program will allow us to focus and extend our efforts in North Carolina, giving more students here a chance to work with us, using the tools of modern science, developing relationships with practicing scientists, and participating in the excitement of current research. SUCCEED accomplishes this through an integrated, three-phase program:

1. The Internet Science Club. This after-school and summer club, aimed at middle school aged and beginning high school students, will help develop the technological confidence and competence they need to take full advantage of the vast resources and potential for collaboration of the Internet. By learning to survey, retrieve, and evaluate information available on the World Wide Web, and through electronic correspondence with those who provide it, club members discover and become proficient with the tools, techniques, and technologies fundamental to modern science. Computer-based explorations are augmented by hands-on investigation activities and field trips.

2. Explorations in Computational Science. The Foundation will offer a range of content-rich workshops and classes to high school aged students that explore research methodology, mathematical modeling, scientific computing, data visualization, and the programming that support new ways of scientific inquiry. The topical focus of the classes, an exciting blend of lecture, hands-on experiments, and computational laboratories, will rotate throughout the year among chemistry, physics, mathematics, and biology, giving participants a broad view of scientific fields through their own explorations and discovery. Students will be able to complete small-to-moderate sized independent research projects as part of the class under the direction of research scientists.

3. Research Apprenticeships. This capstone activity will allow motivated and well-qualified students to bring their new knowledge and skills to life by working side by side with Foundation scientists for a more extended period of time. The Foundation's expertise lies in developing modeling and simulation technologies for educational use, and apprentices will grapple with the same issues computational scientists do by participating in the research, design, testing, and implementation of these technologies, as well as by investigating related research interests of their own.