Again, I am a committee of one.
NAPS is built squarely on KISS >> Keep It Simple Stupid.
No public research university would want NAPS on campus unless NAPS was essentially invisible and no problem. A university will not fit to NAPS, so NAPS must fit to the university. This is a key understanding regarding the entirety of my idea.
Lower level biology classes are full at public research universities. A university will be significantly disinclined toward NAPS if NAPS requires additional course sections to be scheduled. For NAPS to succeed, it has to be small and parasitic, and go unnoticed as a liability when university budgets are being considered.
Furthermore, NAPS will only succeed if it is largely a shared experience for NASA Scholars, which means that a focussed limited curriculum is essential.
My proposed NAPS "shared experience" is this:
Required Courses:
AP Chemistry with University Laboratory class
AP English Language
AP United States History
AP English Literature
AP Microeconomics or AP Macroeconomics
Mathematics through University Calculus I, II, III
University Computer Science I,II, III
University Calculus-based Physics: Foundations of Physics I
Colloquy
Specializations beyond the universally "shared experience" are available in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and allow for one year of university instruction beyond the above mentioned levels in physics and in chemistry, and two years beyond in mathematics.
That is as simple as it gets.
What would you exclude to include biology? But, again, the biology sections are all full.
Know this: A university biology major is not required to take Calculus III, calculus-based physics, or Computer Science I,II, III, all of which are required by NAPS. I contend that the best scientists of the future � including the biologists � need to know mathematics through calculus, calculus-based physics, and the basics of computer science. Do you disagree?
Steven A. Sylwester
Last edited by StevenASylwester; 06/22/10 01:26 PM.
