New Teaching / Learning Resources grants announced

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced grants totaling $20 million in support of programs working to identify and expand cutting-edge learning resources and move innovative new instructional approaches into classrooms.

A significant portion of the funding will support efforts to build a complete system of digital courses aligned to the Common Core State Standards — educational standards for college- and career-ready individuals that are being implemented in more than forty states. The Pearson Foundation, which is developing twenty-four online math and English language arts courses to help teachers and principals implement the standards, was awarded $3 million by the foundation to make these tools more widely available. In addition, the Florida Virtual School was awarded $2 million to develop two literacy-based and two math-based courses that are contextualized within disciplines such as engineering or writing in the natural sciences.

The foundation also awarded $2.6 million to the Digital Youth Network for iRemix, a set of twenty literacy-based learning tracks allow students to earn badges and progress from novice to expert; $2.6 million to Quest Atlantis for the creation of video games that build proficiency in math, literacy, and science; and $2.5 million to the Institute of Play to build a set of game-based pedagogical tools and game-design curricula that can be used within both formal and informal learning contexts. In addition, Next Generation Learning Challenges, a grant competition and community seeking to identify and expand promising technologies that can improve education, will award up to $10 million in grants in June to support projects built around assessments that can help students master seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade content and achieve competencies aligned with the standards.

“Gates Foundation Announces Portfolio of Innovative Grants to Develop New Teaching and Learning Tools That Support Teachers and Help Students.” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Press Release 4/27/11.

Ideas that matter grants

Sappi Fine Paper North America has announced the 2011 call for entries for Ideas that Matter, an annual grant program that recognizes and supports designers who donate their time and talent to create communications materials for a wide range of charitable activities.

Ideas that Matter grants will be given to individual designers, design firms, agencies, in-house corporate design departments, design instructors, and individual design students and design student groups working on any kind of communication project that supports the needs of a nonprofit organization. At least a portion of the project should be printed. Additional elements may include a variety of communication media such as outdoor signage, T-shirts, banner advertising, print advertising, Web sites, and HTML campaigns.

Project concepts and design entries for Ideas that Matter will be evaluated on their creativity, potential effectiveness, and practicality of implementation. Applications must include the mission statement of the nonprofit organization that will benefit from the campaign and proof of its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt (or Canadian equivalent) status.

Grant awards ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 per project may be used for implementation and out-of-pocket costs, including photography, illustration, paper, printing, mailing, and related expenses. Grants cannot be applied toward the designer's time, hardware, or overhead elements such as computers or rent.

For complete program guidelines and the entry form, visit the Sappi Web site.

Contact:
Link to Complete RFP

Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation

Computation is accepted as the third pillar supporting innovation and discovery in science and engineering and is central to NSF's vision of a Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) (as described in http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10015/nsf10015.jsp).Software is an integral enabler of computation, experiment and theory and a primary modality for realizing the CIF21 vision. Scientific discovery and innovation are advancing along fundamentally new pathways opened by development of increasingly sophisticated software. Software is also directly responsible for increased scientific productivity and significant enhancement of researchers' capabilities. In order to nurture, accelerate and sustain this critical mode of scientific progress, NSF has established the Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2) program, with the overarching goal of transforming innovations in research and education into sustained software resources that are an integral part of the cyberinfrastructure.SI2 is a long-term investment focused on catalyzing new thinking, paradigms, and practices in developing and using software to understand natural, human, and engineered systems. SI2's intent is to foster a pervasive cyberinfrastructure to help researchers address problems of unprecedented scale, complexity, resolution, and accuracy by integrating computation, data, networking, observations and experiments in novel ways. It is NSF's expectation that SI2 investment will result in robust, reliable, usable and sustainable software infrastructure that is critical to achieving the CIF21 vision and will transform science and engineering while contributing to the education of next generation researchers and creators of future cyberinfrastructure. Education at all levels will play an important role in integrating such a dynamic cyberinfrastructure into the fabric of how science and engineering is performed. It is expected that SI2 will generate and nurture the interdisciplinary processes required to support the entire software lifecycle, and will successfully integrate software development and support with innovation and research. Furthermore, it will result in the development of sustainable software communities that transcend scientific and geographical boundaries. SI2 envisions vibrant partnerships among academia, government laboratories and industry, including international entities, for the development and stewardship of a sustainable software infrastructure that can enhance productivity and accelerate innovation in science and engineering. The goal of the SI2 program is to create a software ecosystem that includes all levels of the software stack and scales from individual or small groups of software innovators to large hubs of software excellence. The program addresses all aspects of cyberinfrastructure, from embedded sensor systems and instruments, to desktops and high-end data and computing systems, to major instruments and facilities. Furthermore, it recognizes that integrated education activities will play a key role in sustaining the cyberinfrastructure over time and in developing a workforce capable of fully realizing its potential in transforming science and engineering.The SI2 program includes three classes of awards:1. Scientific Software Elements (SSE): SSE awards target small groups that will create and deploy robust software elements for which there is a demonstrated need that will advance one or more significant areas of science and engineering. 2. Scientific Software Integration (SSI): SSI awards target larger, interdisciplinary teams organized around the development and application of common software infrastructure aimed at solving common research problems. SSI awards will result in a sustainable community software framework serving a diverse community. 3. Scientific Software Innovation Institutes (S2I2): S2I2 awards will focus on the establishment of long-term hubs of excellence in software infrastructure and technologies, which will serve a research community of substantial size and disciplinary breadth. This solicitation includes SSE and SSI awards only. It is anticipated that S2I2 awards will be competed in a separate future solicitation. Prospective PIs should be aware that SI2 is a multi-directorate activity and are encouraged to submit proposals for software with broad, interdisciplinary interest. PIs are encouraged to refer to core program descriptions, Dear Colleague Letters, and recently posted initiatives on directorate and divisional home pages to gain insight as to the priorities for the relevant area(s) of science that their proposal may be responsive to. For example, the MPS and ENG directorates have particular interest in proposals related to matter by design. As not all units are participating at the same level, it is strongly recommended that prospective PIs contact a program officer from the list of Cognizant Program Officers in the division(s) closest to the major disciplinary impact of the proposed work to ascertain that the scientific focus and budget of the proposed work are appropriate for this solicitation.

Link to Full Announcement

NSF Publication 11-539