2013 Workshops

Computation has become essential to the practice of contemporary biology. Story telling and concept maps, with the right tools, can quickly turn ideas in biology into dynamic, visual models. The storage, access, analysis and visualization of growing amounts of data, and the functional interpretation of complex biological phenomena require the use of a range of computational approaches and tools. This series of workshops aims to provide an introductory overview of computational resources and methods that can be used with students interested in biology or the biological applications of math at the secondary or introductory college level.

This workshop will cover various ways that computers can be used to enhance and expand the educational experience of students enrolled in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Discussions and hands-on laboratory exercises on visualization, simulation, molecular modeling, and mathematical software will be presented.

This workshop will give physics faculty the opportunity to explore, modify, and/or create computational materials for a traditional lower division modern physics course. Computational physics provides a third method for understanding physics that complements both theory and experiment. This synergy has become manifest in physics practice and this workshop will extend its presence into physics learning.

This workshop will explore concepts in intermediate parallel programming and cluster computing education. Participants will learn how to teach concepts such as distributed memory, shared memory, GPGPU programming, and scaling. The workshop will include lectures and hands-on exercises using the C and Fortran programming languages with parallel implementations utilizing the Message Passing Interface (MPI), OpenMP, and CUDA.

This workshop aims to expose participants to and inspire them with new techniques, teaching materials, and applications to use computational models in the undergraduate curriculum. By bringing faculty and teachers from different disciplines together so that they can learn how to incorporate computational models into their classrooms and research projects, it will advance the use of computing in undergraduate science education. We desire to have participants from a broad range of disciplines, including computer science, mathematics, and the physical and life sciences.

LittleFe is a portable mini-cluster which is small enough to fit in a shipping case, light enough to easily move between classrooms, and travels as standard checked baggage to conferences and workshops. LittleFe's primary focus is turnkey classroom demonstrations of, and exercises in, High Performance Computing (HPC), parallel programming, and Computational/Data Enabled Science and Engineering (CDESE). LittleFe supports shared memory, distributed memory, and GPGPU parallelism. LittleFe's secondary focus is as a production HPC resource for small institutions that are not yet able to afford or support a full scale cluster; in fact, LittleFe can be used as a gateway to, and development platform for full scale HPC resources.

LittleFe buildout events consist of participants assembling their LittleFe unit from a kit; installing the Bootable Cluster CD (BCCD) software on it; learning about the curriculum modules available for teaching parallel programming, HPC and CDESE; and learning how to develop new curriculum modules for the LittleFe/BCCD platform.

LittleFe is a portable mini-cluster which is small enough to fit in a shipping case, light enough to easily move between classrooms, and travels as standard checked baggage to conferences and workshops. LittleFe's primary focus is turnkey classroom demonstrations of, and exercises in, High Performance Computing (HPC), parallel programming, and Computational/Data Enabled Science and Engineering (CDESE). LittleFe supports shared memory, distributed memory, and GPGPU parallelism. LittleFe's secondary focus is as a production HPC resource for small institutions that are not yet able to afford or support a full scale cluster; in fact, LittleFe can be used as a gateway to, and development platform for full scale HPC resources.

Shodor, in partnership with the National Computational Science Institute (NCSI), coupled with funding from the National Science Foundation, is offering an international training opportunity for pre-service and in-service teachers and other Noyce program participants. Applicants must be participants in the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program or Fellowship program depending on the offering.

These workshops will be updated as new opportunities are organized, so please check frequently.