The WISE Mission

The Westminster Institute for Science Education [WISE] was founded in order to enrich and extend K-12 science education in schools across the United States. This is a broad mission and involves initiatives aimed at supporting both teachers and students.

The central challenge of WISE is to create, and train teachers to support, environments in K-12 schools which allow students to explore science on their own, to perform their own unguided, mentored research, and to actually create what has never existed before. This mission is intended to be an extension of, and complementary to, existing science curricula rather than a replacement. The principal difference is that WISE pedagogy and curricula is intended to foster open exploration without boundaries and offer students opportunities where they must exercise creativity and innovative problem solving skills, rather than complete specific pre-fabricated experimental or word-problem objectives.

In addition to running programs for specific classes and events, WISE labs exist as places interested students can go in their free times, study halls, lunch, before and after school. There they will find professional grade tools, instruments, and materials where they may construct and experiment with whatever they might imagine in a supervised environment with experienced mentorship. The WISE labs are the science and technology equivalent of a school library.

In support of this mission, WISE also coordinates in-house programs for student and teacher training and professional development as well as summer sabbaticals at leading technical and scientific universities and commercial laboratories.