Workshop

Everyone is invited to attend a special workshop hosted by the SENCER Center of Innovation – South on March 27th designed for college and high school faculty who teach STEM and STEM-related courses.

SENCER, the signature program of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement, applies the science of learning to the learning of science, all to expand civic capacity. SENCER courses and programs connect science, technology, engineering, and mathematics content to critical local, national, and global challenges. Students and faculty report that the SENCER approach makes science more real, accessible, "useful" and civically important.

SENCER improves science education by focusing on real world problems and, by so doing, extends the impact of this learning across the curriculum to the broader community and society. We do this by developing faculty expertise in teaching "to" basic, canonical science and mathematics "through" complex, capacious, often unsolved problems of civic consequence. Using materials, assessment instruments, and research developed in the SENCER project, faculty design curricular projects that connect science learning to real world challenges.

The workshop will begin with a panel consisting of faculty members from regional institutions representing a variety of disciplines who will showcase their SENCER courses. Ample opportunity will be provided for the panelists to respond to audience questions and for conversation about SENCER opportunities across the region.

Agenda

Moderators

• Ed Katz, Associate Provost and Dean of University Programs, UNC Asheville; SENCER Center of Innovation – South Co-director
• Keith Krumpe, Dean of Natural Sciences, UNC Asheville; SENCER Center of Innovation – South Co-director

Panelists

• Ameena Batada, Assistant Professor of Health and Wellness, will present social entrepreneurship in the classroom.
• Rebecca Reeve, Director of Research Programs, will present social entrepreneurship in the classroom.
• Pearl Fernandes, Associate Dean, South Carolina Honors College, Associate Faculty, School of the Environment, Affiliate Faculty, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of South Carolina Columbia; will present linked interdisciplinary English and biology courses focusing on Southeastern Wetlands.
• Glenn Odenbrett, Project Director at the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement, will present GLISTEN (the Great Lakes Innovative Stewardship Through Education Network), a higher education service-learning program funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• Susan Reiser, New Media and Computer Science Lecturer, will present a new course, Creative Fabrication: Art Meets Technology that reaches across disciplines to fulfill general education requirements for Diversity and Art in an introductory Computer Science course.
• David Clarke, Associate Professor of Biology at UNC Asheville will present the nationally recognized Food For Thought thematic cluster of courses in Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Health and Wellness, and Sociology.

• TBA UNC Asheville Faculty will present their nationally recognized Food For Thought thematic cluster of courses in Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Health and Wellness, and Sociology.

Last Updated: February 19, 2014