With the goal of developing "Next Generation Scientists" - high school students who want a future in sciences and engineering - Verizon has donated $50,000 to UB.
UB's Center for Computational Research will use the grant money to fund the Next Generation Scientists program, which will work with high school teachers at three local high schools: City Honors School, Mount St. Mary Academy and Orchard Park High School. The schools will develop educational materials appropriate for high school students.
According to E. Bruce Pitman, provost for educational technology, the after-school program will introduce students to cutting-edge concepts in computing, networking, biology and programming.
"The program will help develop materials that can be used in the high schools, to bring the chemistry, biology, math and computing together for the students," Pitman said.
Russ Miller, the director of the CCR, said he hopes the program will grow.
"Our intent is to involve many more high schools once the initial pilot program involving the three current high schools has been established and is well underway," Miller said.
"We hope to follow up this pilot program with a federal grant that will allow us to broaden the impact of the program to many school districts throughout Western New York," he added.
Each of the three schools has received a small computer cluster donated by Compaq. As a first step, the students are learning how to build and program the clusters.
According to Miller, two undergraduates and one graduate student will help the high school students and the high school teachers during the program.
"They will receive training in parallel computing, networking, bioinformatics and information technology," Miller said.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
