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NSF-RET Proposal development
Deadline October 6, 2017
Invitation to Collaborate with UCA Summer Research Experience for Teachers Program in Data Science for High School and Community College Computer Science faculty
The Department of Computer Science and the STEM Institute at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) is planning to submit an NSF RET (Research Experience for Teachers) Summer Internship proposal in Data Science for high school teachers and community college faculty. We invite you to partner with UCA in this endeavor and complete the Interest Survey form.
https://goo.gl/uU2Aw9
By completing the form you are NOT committing to join the program but showing interest in advancing your knowledge and career in CS field. The proposal is due on October 6. 2017.
Brief Description of the program (if funded):
The proposed program will sponsor a total of 12 teaching faculty from high schools and community colleges. The participants will carry out research in Data Sciences with a faculty mentor and a graduate student in the Computer Science department to advance their career into the next level. The research will be relevant to participants’ teaching content and easily incorporated into existing lesson plans to enhance the computer/data science understanding and capability of their students. This will significantly stimulate the students to pursue computer science related careers since the research topics provide real-world experience.
Potential Research Topics (if funded):
- Coffee-informatics: Apply natural language processing techniques on coffee reviews to determine the characteristic of good/great coffees.
- Identify multi-labels in movies: One movie is usually associated with multiple genres, such as The Lord of the Rings, which falls into the categories of adventure, drama, and fantasy. Creating a system to automatically and correctly identify the multiple genres of the movies would be an interesting challenge.
- Bioinformatics: Search for longevity genes in yeast by analyzing yeast microarray data
- Color analysis in medical dermatology data: Identify the threat level of Melanomas in dermatology images.
Program Benefits for participants (if funded):
- The opportunity to be involved in an interdisciplinary research project with a team of researchers working together to solve a common problem
- Six-week summer internship in a data science laboratory to reinforce understanding and appreciation of science as a process
- A stipend of $6,000 upon program completion with additional funds of $1,000 for equipment and $1500 ~ $2000 for conference travel
- Development of innovative lesson plans that apply data science research
- Use of media and other strategies to bring laboratory experience to students
- Support during the implementation of the new lessons during the 2018-2019 school year.
- Networking opportunities with fellow science teachers
STEM Leadership for Girls Conference
The UCA STEM Institute hosted a STEM Leadership for Girls Conference for girls in grades 10-12 from Conway High School on Friday, February 10, 2017. This day was an opportunity for the girls to visit three different sessions throughout the day based on their interests. There were female professionals here from L’Oreal, the United States Air Force, CVS Pharmacy, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, NASA, the Astronomy department here at UCA, and a coding session with a couple of professors from the UCA College of Education. Hopefully, they now have confidence to pursue some historically male dominated fields with the knowledge that women bring a very different, but valuable, approach to these careers.
Oculus Rift donation in action!!
Some Conway High School girls were the first to experience the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality kit that was donated by Facebook! Facebook donated 500 virtual reality kits to Arkansas schools under a first-of-its-kind partnership between the social media company and the state, according to the Associated Press. This program is an effort to generate interest in computer science careers. The kits include a computer, camera, and the Oculus Rift headset. What an amazing opportunity for students and a generous gift from Facebook!!
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Services
We provide a variety of services and events for both students and teachers to participate in. Please click one of the buttons below for more information on each:
