It’s a startling statistic: Nearly 30 percent of UC Merced students who start their college careers in the School of Natural Sciences (SNS) switch to majors outside the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields by their second year.
But a new five-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help chemistry Professor Erik Menke change that. Menke, the principal investigator on the grant, believes the problem stems from the way introductory science courses are taught.
Notoriously difficult lower-division STEM courses — including general chemistry, required of all SNS students, and organic chemistry, required of chemistry and biology majors and medical school aspirants — have long discouraged capable students from entering STEM fields.
Menke has assembled a team of STEM faculty members — chemistry professors Christine Isborn, Hrant Hratchian, Ben Stokes, Michelle Leslie and UC Merced Extension Director of Education Programs Lynn Reimer — to come up with a new approach to teaching chemistry.
“It’s well-known that there are better ways to teach science than through lectures,” Menke said. “But there are significant barriers to better pedagogy, such as producing new teaching materials.”
Read more about it here.
