STARKVILLE, Miss. (WTVA) - Science teachers from all over the Magnolia state are on campus to learn about an emerging field of computational science.
Thanks to a five year grant the National Science Foundation program is enabling a group of science teachers to play the role of student and learn about what the field of computational science has to offer.
"This is a unique workshop," says Judy Flake, science teacher. "Very challenging, it is teaching us new information giving us new ideas and giving us access to materials that we have not had."
"What we're wanting to do is educate the teachers so they can go and educate their students in computational science," says Katie Echols, Education Outreach Coordinator. "That they get into college and there is an interest there for them in technology and that they may pursue it and be our next generation of researchers and teachers."
On the agenda for teachers turned students this week how to integrate skills in the classroom in the following subjects, computational biology, computational chemistry and, biological simulation.
"Like today they learned about biological simulation and fluid mechanics," adds Echols. "So what we did was show them computers can be used to kind of simulate the things that would happen when we run actual experiments."
One unique aspect of the workshop is that the teachers become students for one week and in return they go back to their schools and teach the next generation of students coming up.
"So the goal is really teach them so that they can teach their students who will become the professionals in that field," says Echols.
On Friday the teachers will learn how tools are used in research and next year the workshop will take place at Southern Miss.
