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Science in a Changing World
engaging with scientific, technological, educational and social change

Masters, Professional Science Masters [subject to formal approval], and Graduate Certificate serving students who want to focus on science in the context of social change or individual intellectual development.

Course material, classroom activities, teaching/learning interactions, and projects focused on real-world problems provide students opportunities to:
  • learn about science and its social context
  • gain a set of models for work in education, policy, and other areas of civic engagement
  • discuss practices and philosophies of science, education, and social change; and
  • undertake research with a view to engaging with science in a changing social and personal world.
Students with diverse backgrounds and career paths--from laboratories to field research, journalism to policy formulation, teaching to activism--are welcome to join the track. In addition to examining Science and its Social Context, students develop valuable professional skills in Research, Writing, and Evaluation for Civic Engagement and in Collaborative Processes and Problem-Based Teaching around current controversies involving science and technology.

Science in a Changing World students graduate well prepared to move across the persistent divide between sciences and humanities. They are able to participate in questioning and shaping the direction of scientific and social changes, as well as to teach and engage others to participate in this important endeavor.

Program Requirements

The 33-credit M.A. requires 4 foundation courses, 4 electives, and 3 "research & engagement" courses culminating in a capstone "synthesis."
The 15-credit Graduate Certificate requires 2 foundation courses and 3 electives.
Courses offered face-to-face, online, or at-a-distance (=joining regular class over the internet, with other interactions online).
(Officially the Program is a track in the Critical & Creative Thinking Graduate Program.)

I. Foundation courses

Either CrCrTh 640, Environment, Science and Society: Critical Thinking Or CrCrTh 645/Biol 545, Biology in Society: Critical Thinking
CrCrTh 650, Mathematics Thinking Skills
Pub Pol 749/CrCrTh 649, Scientific & Political Change
CrCrTh 652, Children and Science

M.A. students take four Foundation courses; Certificate students choose two of the four.

II. Distribution recommendations/requirements

Electives can be chosen from across the Graduate School but it is recommended that the combination of foundation, elective, and research & engagement courses meet minimum numbers in each of the three areas of Science, Interpretation of Science in Context, and Pedagogy & Civic Engagement: Notes:

III. Research & Engagement Courses

The last three required courses -- two precapstone courses, CrCrTh 692, Processes of Research and Engagement, and CrCrTh 693, Action Research, together with the capstone CrCrTh 694, Synthesis Seminar -- are designed to facilitate students' development in research, writing, and evaluation in some focused topic of their interest that brings the three SICW areas into dynamic interaction.

Advising

SICW students will, as far as possible, be guided by two advisors: a primary advisor from the SICW core faculty; and a "Complementary Content" advisor from the UMass Boston faculty, whose role is to ensure rigor in the scientific or interpretive knowledge base that is not covered in the student's past or current training. (For example, a student in Public Policy taking the SICW Certificate because of an interest in biotechnology policy might have a molecular biologist as the Complementary Content advisor.) Students work with their two advisors to fashion a set of electives that meet the distribution requirements and prepares the students for their final research and engagement projects.

Consult the online handbook for the CCT Program for step-by-step information about joining and moving through the SICW track. Apply to the CCT M.A. or Certificate program, but state SICW track. Fall and spring admissions accepted. Contact the Program Director with additional questions, including those concerning the special characteristics of the SICW track.

SICW core faculty

Peter Taylor (Program Director; life, environmental, and health sciences in their social context; critical reflective practice in science; ecological complexity; gene-environment debates; social epidemiology) [617.287.7636, Wheatley Hall, 2nd Floor, Room 157]
Arthur Eisenkraft (science education, especially active physics)
Nina Greenwald (problem-based learning with biomedical cases)
Fadia Harik (mathematics education)
Arthur Millman (environmental ethics; philosophy of science)
Rachel Skvirsky (biology in a social context, especially genetics and molecular biology)
Carol Smith (children and science; conceptual change; cognitive development)
Robert Stevenson (citizen science; technological change, values & institutions)
Bala Sundaram (non-linear dynamics; mathematical biology)
Brian White (biology education; educational software and multimedia)

Other advisors

Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD, MPH (health care and social media/technologies, global health, and immigration)
Rick Kesseli (teaching literacy in genetics and the scientific process; molecular evolutionary genetics; conservation genetics; agricultural work involving genetically modified organisms
David Levy (environmental science in social context; innovation and renewable energy)
Scott Maisano (Shakespeare and automata)
Rosalyn Negrón (social network analysis; cultural and linguistic anthropology; integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods; multiple ethnic identifications in relation to health disparities and other social policy)
Mark Pawlak (quantitative literacy and reasoning; investigations pedagogy where college students create and apply mathematical models to real world data; effective use of ed. technology)
Louise Penner (literature and medicine; medical humanities)

Related UMass Boston-based activities

  • Inter-college faculty Seminar in Humanities and Sciences
  • New England Workshop on Science and Social Change
  • Science in a Changing World wiki
  • Twitter postings
    This publication is drawn directly from the SICW website, http://www.stv.umb.edu/SICW.html.
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