With funding mainly from the Fondation H. Dudley Wright of Geneva, Switzerland, Tufts University maintains the Wright Center for Innovative Science Education as part of its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Our emphasis is on innovation and dissemination, as articulated in our mission statement:
The Wright Center is dedicated to the creation and sharing of novel instructional techniques and interdisciplinary resources for pre-college teachers. Through its fellowships, workshops, seminars, and a variety of public-outreach activities, the Center provides leadership in the training and retraining of science teachers to use innovative methods to stimulate young minds.
To this end, our goals are fivefold:
• to improve the teaching of science in elementary and secondary schools,
• to encourage young people to pursue science as a career,
• to explore innovative methods to communicate new and better ways of teaching science,
• to test and disseminate novel educational products and activities,
• to share the excitement and wonders of science with the public.
The Wright Center, and its centerpiece Teacher Resource Room, is headquartered within the interdisciplinary Science & Technology Center on Tufts' Medford campus. Here, among more than a hundred scientists and engineers, a group of about a dozen dedicated professional educators implement a variety of programs and activities of value to pre-college teachers of science and mathematics.
View the PDF version of the Wright Center general information brochure. (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view file)