A year ago, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute issued a challenge to 224 undergraduate colleges nationwide: identify creative new ways to engage your students in the biological sciences.

Now 48 of the nation’s best undergraduate institutions will receive $60 million to help them usher in a new era of science education. This includes the largest number of new grantees in more than a decade; more than a quarter have never received an HHMI grant before.

Colleges in 21 states and Puerto Rico will receive $700,000 to $1.6 million over the next four years to revitalize their life sciences undergraduate instruction. HHMI has challenged colleges to create more engaging science classes, bring real-world research experiences to students, and increase the diversity of students who study science.
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Creating interdisciplinary science classes and incorporating more mathematics into the biology curriculum were among the major themes proposed by the schools. Many schools will also allow more students to experience research through classroom-based courses and summer laboratory programs.
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HHMI is the nation’s largest private supporter of science education. It has invested more than $1.2 billion in grants to reinvigorate life science education at both research universities and liberal arts colleges and to engage the nation’s leading scientists in teaching. In 2007, it launched the Science Education Alliance, which will serve as a national resource for the development and distribution of innovative science education materials and methods.