CU News
News from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
CU: The Brazilians are coming! (to study science)
Feb 17th
Brazilian ‘Science Without Borders’
undergraduates study at CU-Boulder
undergraduates study at CU-Boulder
100,000 Brazilian students, fully funded by Brazil’s booming economy, want to share knowledge
The University of Colorado Boulder welcomed 19 students from Brazil this semester as part of the new Science Without Borders Program and Brazil’s initiative to place and fully fund outstanding students abroad to supplement their studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
The students are among approximately 650 Brazilian undergraduates who have been selected to study on U.S. campuses with funding for their tuition, fees and housing from the Brazilian government’s Science Without Borders Program. The program, announced last year, provides scholarships to Brazilian undergraduate students for one year of study at one of more than 100 host colleges and universities, including CU-Boulder. Scholarships are given primarily to students in the STEM fields. After two semesters and an on- or off-campus internship, the students will return to Brazil to complete their degrees.
“Science Without Borders interested me because I wanted to know what it was like to study and live on campus and to learn in a different environment,” said Victor Sabioni, an aerospace engineering student from the Universidade de Federal de minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. “I am taking two classes that are not offered at home, and everything is great so far.
“The campus is amazingly beautiful and everyone has been so welcoming and polite. CU couldn’t be better. It’s like heaven with homework.”
The Science Without Borders Program at CU-Boulder is offered through a partnership between the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering and Applied Science and the Division of Continuing Education.
“The students are studying with their peers, living in university housing and experiencing life in Colorado and the U.S.,” said Anne Heinz, dean of Continuing Education and associate vice chancellor for outreach and engagement. “Several of the students already have indicated an interest in returning to CU-Boulder for graduate school.
“CU-Boulder students, whether they’re from the San Luis Valley, San Francisco or São Paulo, will benefit from the enriched classroom conversations and experiences enabled by these programs,” she said. “These collaborations foster our future as a global society, and we look forward to CU-Boulder’s continued participation in this program.”
An additional cohort of students is scheduled to arrive later this year for programs beginning in the summer and fall.
The Science Without Borders Program is part of a larger Brazilian government initiative to grant 100,000 scholarships to Brazil’s best students to study abroad at the world’s best universities. The program is sponsored by the scholarship foundation of Brazil’s Ministry of Education, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior. The program is administered by the Institute of International Education, an independent nonprofit specializing in international exchange. The institute has been working closely with the ministry and with CU-Boulder and other U.S. universities to place the students in study programs that best meet their academic needs.
“We are pleased to be partnering with the government of Brazil and with the U.S. host campuses to implement this important program,” said Allan E. Goodman, Institute of International Education president and CEO. “At a time when Brazil’s economy is expanding rapidly, and Brazil and the United States are forging unprecedented ties in trade, energy and scientific development, we look to higher education as another area where our two countries should seek much stronger cooperation.”
CU students reach big carbon neutrality goal
Feb 16th
CU-BOULDER STUDENT GOVERNMENT
FACILITIES REACH CARBON NEUTRALITY
FACILITIES REACH CARBON NEUTRALITY
The University of Colorado Student Government has reduced the net emissions of greenhouse gases, or GHGs, from its student-run facilities to zero after committing in 2007 to reach carbon neutrality.
CUSG operates three large CU-Boulder facilities including the University Memorial Center, Student Recreation Center and Wardenburg Health Center.
“We are very proud of this accomplishment,” said CUSG Vice President Carly Robinson. “It’s a reflection of our sustainability-minded campus community and the impressive resources we have on hand to be more environmentally friendly, and even save money, by implementing green strategies.”
CU-Boulder students will gather for a “Getting to Carbon Neutrality” forum on Friday, Feb. 17, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Aspen Room of the University Memorial Center. They will discuss the campus’s carbon neutrality achievements and remaining challenges with input from a panel of CU staff. The event is open to CU students but requires pre-registration at http://ecenter.colorado.edu/carbonneutrality.
More than 9,000 metric tons of GHG emissions attributed to operating the student-run buildings have been eliminated through renewable energy generation, energy conservation measures and carbon-offset strategies implemented by CUSG. Carbon neutrality was reached even as square footage and usage of the facilities increased in recent years.
CUSG partnered with Facilities Management to install additional solar panels on CU facilities that contribute roughly 72,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per month to the electricity grid — enough to power about 80 houses. This renewable energy generation replaces a portion of the energy generated by traditional systems that emit GHGs.
CUSG buildings also have been renovated with better insulation and sealing technologies, more efficient lighting and windows. These upgrades reduced the buildings’ total energy consumption by nearly 15 percent over the last five years.
CUSG also has worked with Colorado communities on carbon reduction projects as a way to offset GHG emissions from CUSG buildings. The projects provide educational, economic development and social equity benefits for the state.
One of the projects includes solar thermal system installations, used to heat water, for low-income housing in Loveland, Colo.
Two years ago, the CUSG helped support the installation of a system that converts methane gas from the Larimer County Landfill in Fort Collins, Colo., into energy. Methane gas is a potent GHG emission.
Recently, CUSG contracted with Native Energy — a carbon offsets program provider — to support a novel kiln system used by Commercial Brick Corp., an Oklahoma brick manufacturer. The kiln system is powered by methane gas captured from a nearby landfill. It prevents methane emissions and replaces fossil fuel use. The company, which will participate in the Feb. 17 forum, provides 200 jobs and produces 144 million bricks per year sold in 15 states.
The CU Environmental Center coordinated the carbon neutrality effort. The center administers grants and loan programs within CUSG facilities that have helped fund energy conservation projects, delivering over $1.6 million in energy cost savings for CUSG over the last five years while driving down GHG emissions.
CU Boulder’s video game design research catches fire with students
Feb 15th
CU-Boulder nets $1.5 million NSF grant
to continue video game design research
to continue video game design research
The University of Colorado Boulder exceeded its own researchers’ expectations with its iDREAMS Scalable Game Design Summer Institute, and that success has been rewarded with a new $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. CU-Boulder researchers are tracking how video game design engages students in computational thinking and STEM simulation design.
STEM simulations are computer programs that model natural and social phenomena, such as how a forest fire spreads from tree to tree. Students design these simulations to learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
The new NSF-funded Computational Thinking for Teaching Computing grant to computer science Professor Alexander Repenning and co-investigators Kris Gutiérrez and David Webb from the School of Education, will build on previous work the team did on video game design as a motivational tool for computer science education.
That project, called iDREAMS, involved more than 100 teachers and over 8,000 students producing more than 10,000 games and STEM simulations. The project started in Colorado but quickly expanded to Alaska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming where it gave teachers the tools and support needed to take the video game design curriculum into their classrooms. Participation far exceeded initial projections for the iDREAMS research project of about 40 teachers and 1,200 students over three years.
The curriculum, as taught through the Scalable Game Design Summer Institute on the CU-Boulder campus during the past three summers, was found to be highly effective across a wide spectrum of communities, including technology hubs, urban/inner city, rural and remote Native American communities.
The research team was encouraged by the extraordinarily high levels of participation and motivation, especially for girls and underrepresented students: 45 percent of participants were girls and 56 percent were underrepresented minorities. Motivation, expressed by a willingness to take more game design classes, was determined to be 74 percent for boys, 64 percent for girls, 71 percent for white participants and 69 percent for minority students.
In the new project, student performance data using measures of computational thinking will be integrated to further analyze how video game design helps students reason and learn STEM content. The performance data will be used to enhance the Scalable Game Design curriculum and professional development opportunities for teachers.
“I am extremely excited to see the enormous energy of students and teachers involved in the Scalable Game Design project,” said Repenning. “They have shown that it really is possible to bring computer science education to public schools and integrate it into the curriculum. The Scalable Game Design curriculum includes problem solving, logical thinking skills and sophisticated math and science concepts highly relevant to STEM and computer science education.”
CU-Boulder will again host its popular Scalable Game Design Summer Institute for K-12 teachers this summer, June 4-10, as part of its long-term efforts to improve and broaden participation in computer science education.
“We now want to analyze the impact of the research on students’ motivation and what they are learning, continuing the success of the iDREAMS project,” said Webb. “With the new grant, we can build up more robust research instruments that can be used for computer science education. We will continue to be very intentional regarding our research of particular populations and will be broadening the scope of groups studied.”
Project partners include AgentSheets Inc., the Computer Science Teachers Association, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, the Shodor Foundation and SRI International.
For more information visit http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu.
