Lafayette Journal & Courier

Purdue to break ground on teaching center

By TANYA BROWN
September 21, 2006

Purdue University will break ground today on the latest center in Discovery Park, the research hub taking shape on the west edge of campus.

The $10 million Discovery Learning Center, slated for completion in 2008, will focus on teaching techniques and environments conducive to learning. Also a focal point will be the way people learn best. An emphasis will be placed on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, also known as the STEM disciplines.

More than $25 million in external funding has already been secured to support the work of the center, which is ongoing prior to the construction of the 20,000-square-foot facility.

Eric Kukula, an industrial technology graduate student, is taking part in one of the center's programs, an initative called GK12, which sends graduate students into the middle school setting to help stimulate youngsters' interest in science and math.

"We want to encourage students to have a better understanding and want to go into the STEM careers," said Kukula. "I didn't know some of these technologies existed when I was that age and I didn't have access to them. Part of the program is to show the kids what they can do."

Kukula, who works in biometrics such as fingerprint, face and hand recognition for security purposes, as well as retina scanning and voice recognition, recently used face scanning technology as an exercise for students at Tecumseh Middle School.

"I had a kid who said at the beginning that he didn't like math, but after I showed him a scan of my face and started explaining how you have to learn the geometry behind it to do this kind of thing, he started asking all kinds of questions."

He said that type of offbeat learning helps kids make a connection to mathematics.

"We had them measure their hands for a measuring exercise so they could learn with that as opposed to just out of a textbook."

Wilella Burgess, managing director of the Discovery Learning Center, said projects like GK12 help make science seem more reachable for students in the primary grades.

"A lot of these kids don't know there is such a thing as graduate school and it lets them meet scientists and grad students and learn that they're not all weird, nerdy people," she said. "It also lets classroom teachers have the access to cutting edge research."

Beverly Davenport Sypher, interim director of the center, said the facility will allow researchers to look at changing how education happens.

Flexible laboratory spaces, cutting edge technology like "smart" blackboards capable of interfacing with computer programs and portable learning devices will facilitate new approaches to the traditional classroom settings.

"We know that people learn differently. There are gender differences, age differences, and then there are the digital learners, who are born into a highly technical, digital world. They process and store information differently."

Davenport Sypher said she hopes the center will help better prepare America for the future.

"The prediction is that we are not going to have enough technologically prepared workers, so we have to start with our earliest learners up through the workforce to determine how do we take on this challenge? The state of Massachusetts has legislated engineering education in K-12. That's very interesting isn't it? We learn by doing."