Multiple Ones

Professor Philip Johns 

This assignment asks students to write a research proposal in the format of a US National Science Foundation (NSF) grant proposal. The assignment has the following learning goals: 1) thinking about science as an active and creative process, not just a recitation of facts, or winnowing through ideas or data or interpretations; 2) marrying those creative sparks to testable hypotheses – and then think pragmatically about how to test their ideas against others; 3) learning to write a research/grant proposal, a necessary skill in the Sciences.

 Akin to the NSF process, students are requested to submit a short-format preliminary proposal, and then a long-format full proposal. Students evaluate each others’ short-format proposals in anonymous review panels, exactly as happens in the NSF.