WATERVILLE — Thomas College is proud to announce that it has been awarded a three-year $135,000 grant by the Davis Educational Foundation to support new approaches to scientific and quantitative literacy.
Funding from the grant on “Mathematics, Science and Methodology in the Information Age” will provide lab equipment and faculty support for Thomas College to build a new, interdisciplinary six-credit general education course that incorporates science, math, and communication skills.
“This course is an exciting opportunity to prepare students for careers where they know how to gather, analyze, and present data that is accurate and informs good decision-making. These are critical skills in this age of information overload,” said Thomas College Provost Thomas Edwards.
Featuring hands-on lab activities, the course will be team-taught by faculty from different math and science disciplines. Students will generate data, learn how to analyze their results, and then develop effective presentation skills to communicate their results to a lay audience.
Dr. Allison Moloney, one of the authors of the grant and Thomas College science professor, said, “This course is going to be a really great way to give students a peak behind the curtain to the process of science. It won’t be about picture-perfect hands-on demonstrations of things we already know. It’s about asking your own questions, designing your own experiments, trouble shooting in real time, then the students themselves get to interpret what it all means. It can get messy and complex but that’s what makes it so fun!”
The grant was received from the Davis Educational Foundation established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.