Colby College will receive a $500,000 Award for the Integration of Research in Education (AIRE), the National Science Foundation announced today. The money will bolster Colby's efforts to integrate research into its natural sciences program, and local K-12 students will benefit from an expansion of the college's partnership with area school systems.

The award provides funding over a three-year period to make curricular enhancements and to build research components into upper-level science and math courses as well as courses that fulfill distribution requirements for all Colby students.

According to NSF Acting Deputy Director Joe Bordogna, the AIRE grants "help create a discovery-rich environment where institutions and their students can benefit from making research an essential component of school curriculum."

Colby's AIRE proposal was a natural extension of the college's 1991 "Plan for the Sciences," whose theme was "education through research." That plan focused more attention on interdisciplinary learning and emphasized research in regular classroom work. Research integrated in learning promotes hands-on and collaborative learning opportunities for students and fosters analytical and critical thinking skills.

The AIRE money will strengthen the overall program and provide new research possibilities through interdepartmental linkages and a smaller student-to-teacher ratio. It also will fund an expansion of Colby's outreach to area school systems by sponsoring several workshops for K-12 teachers.

NSF program officials say Colby was chosen for its commitment to "providing undergraduates an experience rooted in the process of discovery, and to set the stage for life-long inquiry and learning." Competition for the grant was keen; more than 140 colleges applied and just 10 were funded.

"We are excited about this NSF award and the possibilities it provides for our undergraduates," said F. Russell Cole, the Oak Professor of Biological Sciences and co-project director (with Dean of the Faculty Edward Yeterian) for Colby's AIRE grant. Cole said the grant recognizes Colby's many accomplishments in the sciences during the last decade as well as plans for future innovation. He concluded, "We're also excited about way it will expand opportunities for local school districts participating in the Colby Partnership for Science Education."