Educators at other institutions are in volved with various subprojects. Management of the project is directed by The Leadership Team, a multidisciplinary group of twelve educators representing five universities and colleges. The director and PI for the NT project is Professor John Moore of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Oversight of the project activities is provided by a National Visiting Committee comprising thirteen educators and industrial leaders of national prominence. Therefore a topic-oriented curriculum offers new opportunities for attracting and retaining an increasingly diverse student population.
Students learn best when they are interested and involved.
Real-world topics tap into the most compelling areas of interest, interest in ourselves and the forces influencing our lives. The ultimate goal of meaningful science education is the development of inter and intradisciplinary understanding of concepts, i.e., science literacy. In the topic-oriented course the movement from one topic to another presents the basic chemistry that underlies many seemingly different topics. This approach facilitates the process by which students learn to construct their own understanding of a topic from different scientific viewpoints and the relationshi p of one chemical topic with another, thereby tearing down false inter and intradepartmental barriers to learning. In overview, the first two experiments concern the first two-years of the college curriculum.