-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I known an academic person who try to improve math, science, and technology education at higher education and K-12 institutions in USA. He is also supported by National Science Foundation. His name is Osman Yasar. He is a professor and chair of the Department of Computational Sciences at SUNY College at Brockport. He also have a web page about "Computational Science and Engineering Programs" for all types of education, including K12 education (http://www.cps.brockport.edu/~yasar/private/cse.html). You can find more information from this page.
Cem Ahmet MERCAN H.Vidal, Jr. wrote: > Howdy. > > My son attends a Science and Tech focused high school here in beautiful > New Jersey. This is a pretty neat place for a high school, about 70% > of the faculty has their PhD Kids take about 2-4 semesters of physics > and chemistry, there are lots of computers, they teach Scheme as well > as C++, Java, etc. Freshmen get the option of taking things like Number > Theory. Interesting place. > > However, I have a thought. There is, to my knowledge, essentially > zero exposure to high-performance computing at this school. And I > think this is a mistake. > > My thinking is this. I have observed that in materials science, > in medical imaging, in genetics, even in theoretical mathematical > studies, these days you see a lot of applied high-performance > computing. I get the impression (back me up here if it's otherwise) > that skills in high-performance computing have a fair amount > of value, and are growing in terms of overall industry demand. > > Yet smart kids really have very little exposure to these classes of > problems, even if there are exposed to the problems themselves. > These kids can take a class in genomics, and they even learn about > some classes of problems in genomics or proteomics where you > need to run large mathematical problems to get 'concrete results' > towards practical studies or applications in the problem domain, but > they are kept far from actual hands-on or low (or even high) > level theory in terms of actual implementations or even > engineering considerations WRT HPC. > > Yet they have *rooms* full of computers doing nothing, fully > networked. (there's always lots of rooms of unused computers > in places like these, I have found, because they basically keep > upgrading to new hardware every year or two. Each summer, > the hallways are nearly impassable due to stacks and stacks > (not kidding) of computers to be thrown out or recycled). > > So I have convinced the faculty at this school that HPC > is enough of a valuable study, even a strategic interest, that > sharp kids like these really should be educated in the ins and outs > of high performance computing. In general, HPC; in particular, our > good friends, the Beowulf clusters. > > I would like to get real feedback from students, engineers and > scientists on this list about this broad idea: is it useful to expose > young engineer and scientists-to-be to HPC at the high school > level, in generaly, but especially if these kids are on track > to be the next generation of users of this tech? If so, what is a decent > route to take when it comes to this as a HS level scholastic pursuit? > > So there you go, I have thrown out the first chip. Any takers to place > a comment or two? > > Thanks in advance for your collective wisdom and help. > > H. Vidal, Jr. > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) iD8DBQFD3GCPipV9/tAZ2IMRAlOHAJ0drkwMRPV0miBbNkb+bArvHZ8ClACguB5Q Q1bUaxWFYordGSXDgVkmonE= =1sqM -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
