Mentor Center

General Information

As a nationally recognized non-profit, Shodor strives to improve math and science education through the effective use of modeling and simulation technologies - "computational science." In addition to developing and deploying interactive models, simulations, and educational tools, Shodor serves students and educators directly through workshops and other hands-on experiences. Shodor offers innovative workshops helping faculty and teachers incorporate computational science into their own curricula or programs. Shodor works to ensure that students are prepared to enter into computationally intensive scientific research fields through appropriate mentorships by active scientists. Time and time again, Shodor has been recognized as a national leader and a premier resource in the effective use of computers to improve both math and science education.

As interns, students will contribute their skills toward developing educational materials that will then be launched on Shodor's website and used by educators and students across the country, as tools to improve math and science education. In addition, interns often work off-site with local organizations to utilize the tools they have helped to develop. Interns will be tasked with developing computational science curriculum, editing current curriculum and website content, teaching offsite and summer workshops, and a variety of other related tasks.

Shodor is seeking students passionate about education, computational science, engineering, and physics. Applicants should be knowledgeable in both web design and programming languages such as PHP, CSS, and SQL, and JavaScript. Shodor is also seeking education majors with experience in developing lesson plans, knowledge of different teaching philosophies, and experience in the classroom.

Internship Eligibility

Shodor provides many opportunities that enable students to participate in part time internships during the summer as well as throughout the school year. The Mentor Center is located at our office in Durham. Internship applicants should be current majors or demonstrate proficiency in one or more areas of science; this includes chemistry, physics, biology, education, mathematics, environmental sciences, biomedical engineering, medicine, computer science, information technologies and other sciences. Some internships may require programming ability (C, Java, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, etc.) or graphics and web design skills, while others may require experience and interest in scientific subject matter. Prior experience is preferred, but training for qualified internship candidates is available.

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The Mentor Center at Shodor was established to ensure that students are prepared to enter into computationally intensive scientific research fields through appropriate mentorships by active scientists.

The Mentor Center Internship Program aims to bring the technologies, techniques, and tools of computational science and related information technology (IT) topics to local high school and college students.

The goal of Shodor is not only to teach students computing in the sciences, but also to encourage the use of appropriate and authentic tools. Therefore, students will use a variety of tools in ways that are appropriate to the task, and that are, as much as possible, the same tools that are used by computational science practitioners.

One view of the scientific world is that there are four ways of doing science: observational science, experimental science, theoretical science and computational science, also known as "modeling and simulation."

We help students understand and apply this framework, with a particular focus on viewing the world through a computational lens, or in other words, by learning through the development of computer models.