Now, however, professors can turn undergraduate students loose not in a laboratory, but on a computer. Science Challenge interactive programs bring research level tools, such as molecular modeling and computational chemistry, to entry level students, allowing them to manipulate data and construct lessons. One has to do science to learn science, contends Orville L. Chapman , professor of chemistry, associate dean for educational innovation, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Science Challenge s principal investigator. There simply isn t any other way.
Information technology enables learning based on discovery.
That s the only way that students will ever be able to understand science. Science Challenge, which debuted in 1991, now reaches upwards of 15,000 lower division undergraduate students each year at UCLA, as well as countless other high school and university students in North America, Europe and Asia. Several major corporations, led by Hewlett Packard and including Howard Hughes Medical Institute and CAChe Inc., fund the project, which captured top honors in the Education and Academia category of the technology industry s Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program in 1995 marking the second consecutive year a UCLA program has won the award. More than 50 discovery modules are available to undergraduate science students, with interactive programs covering disciplines ranging from astronomy, atmospheric science and chemistry, to earth and space sciences, physics, biology and general science education. With one program, students can design and explore the properties of new kinds of molecules.