Brainy Quote of the Day

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Big League Version of "Cooperate to Graduate"...



Zhi Guo, a graduate student at Arizona State U., works with a laser in a laboratory in the universities Biodesign Institute, which takes on real world problems.

With budget cuts affecting all levels of education and research in the current climate, cooperation to forward scientific advances would be a great idea!

This post details the idea at the collegiate level of course, but I think an analogous secondary structure could work:

- chemistry/physics working on instrumentation/robotics/a rocket club;
- Art/CAD/mathematics/physics working on architectural designs;
- biology/chemistry working in cooperation with a university for research on cancer (example)...

...that real-world connection could spur future high school graduates to consider jobs in science.

Think Educational "Manhattan Project"...

"Research universities face a long list of seemingly intractable problems.

"Faculty too often work in subject-specific silos. Taxpayer-supported basic science doesn't get converted by industry into useful products and jobs. The vagaries of federal financing play havoc with laboratory projects and staffing. And now, making it even worse for some universities, Congress is cutting off budgetary 'earmarks' reserved for many big-picture projects.

"One possible solution­—known as interdisciplinary science, or 'team science'­—is ripe for a surge in growth. An early sign: a new group of campus-based grant experts, known as the National Organization of Research Development Professionals, has ballooned from 32 to 232 members in the past two years, with what its leadership sees as a focus on promoting interdisciplinary science."

Chronicles in Higher Education: As Budgets Tighten, Big Science Gets a New Opportunity to Make Its Case

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