Innovative New Course Developed for "Sciencephobics"

Those Mount Holyoke students who describe themselves as suffering from "sciencephobia" (there are more than a few), have long lamented the fact that Mount Holyoke does not offer a "rocks for jocks" class. During course registration, many students cringe at having to pencil in a science course to fulfill distribution requirements. There is good news for such plagued individuals. The College is introducing a new course in the spring, and while it will not be an easy "A," The Unity of Science: Light and Matter, Eyes and Brain, will take a revolutionary approach to teaching science to nonscience majors.

Unity of Science evolved from a two-year examination of the science curriculum. Faculty were concerned that the traditional rigorous approach to teaching introductory science, which is geared towards students planning careers in science, has little relevance to nonscience majors. About a dozen professors worked long and hard to develop a course that would appeal to them. Unity of Science will present science in an interdisciplinary, exploration-oriented, interactive way. Pending faculty confirmation, the course is expected to carry distribution credit.

Tom Dennis, professor and chair of astronomy; Frank DeToma, professor of biological sciences; and Steve Dunn, associate professor of geology, will team teach the course. According to Dunn, topics will encompass more than one type of science--from astronomy and geology to chemistry and physics.

Unity of Science will have no large lecture halls--each section will be capped at fifteen students. It will require no exams; rather, grades will be determined by lab reports, projects, and student journals. Instead of following a set recipe for lab experiments, students will ask questions concerning the topic and then work towards answering those questions. Working in groups, they will conduct original research and present their findings to the class.

Though it was designed to be a year-long endeavor, Unity of Science will be a single pilot semester in the spring containing segments of next fall's curriculum. Dunn stresses that the syllabus will be subject to change. "We have the advantage of not being locked into one textbook, and we'll have an internal flexibility that will enable us to listen to student input."

Even though the course hasn't begun yet, it has already received considerable recognition. The National Science Foundation awarded Mount Holyoke a two-year, $150,000 grant to develop Unity of Science. The course was featured in the Daily Hampshire Gazette in July, and an Associated Press article about the course was picked up in September. The faculty's long-term goal is that Unity of Science will become a national model for science education.