Education

The University at Buffalo School of Informatics is testing a revolutionary freeware integrated library-automation system that can be used to automate all of the daily functions of libraries, from recording the purchase of materials and helping patrons to find them, to billing them for overdue books or rentals.

What can Tickle Me Elmo, the interactive toy for toddlers, teach high school students about robotics? Quite a lot, according to the instructors for a University at Buffalo workshop for high school students that runs July 7-11.

A decade ago, high school students who aspired to life sciences careers foresaw a future full of pipettes and beakers; today, high school students with similar aspirations are honing their skills at the computer as much as at the lab bench. Toward that end, nine high school students will learn the basics of bioinformatics -- the interface where life science meets computational science -- at the University at Buffalo's Summer High School Workshop in Computational Science.

The University at Buffalo will continue to admit and enroll students from SARS-affected countries and will not restrict travel by faculty and staff to these countries by withholding university funding, according to new policies developed by the Task Force on SARS and approved on Monday by Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi.

An education researcher in the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education working with disaffected urban students says a project involving students in the Buffalo Public Schools shows that digital video technology is a teaching and learning "super tool" that can transform urban teaching and have enormous positive effects for poor and minority children in urban schools.

When the economy turns sluggish, where are the job opportunities? All over the map, if you've got a graduate degree in geography. That's been the experience of graduate students who completed their master's or doctoral degrees in the University at Buffalo's Department of Geography this month, all of whom have found good jobs that take full advantage of their degrees.

The scene: A small, well-kept home in a "nice" Buffalo neighborhood. A bright pink, inflatable elephant, a child's toy, lies on its side on the kitchen floor and a small stuffed animal, a white puppy, rests on the living room couch. This is the scene described by a local police detective, an invited speaker for "What Did They Die From," an undergraduate honors class at the University at Buffalo.

The members of the University at Buffalo Presidential Search Advisory Committee, the group responsible for the national search to identify UB's next president, met for the first time on May 13. The purpose of the meeting was to begin work with well-known search firm EMN/Witt/Kieffer, the firm engaged to assist with the presidential selection process.

Workshops, discussions and keynote presentations by three nationally renowned education reformers will distinguish "Reinventing Education," a week-long summer institute to be held July 15-18 by the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education.

Children are becoming obese as young as 3 years old, and obese 10-year-olds are showing abnormal liver function and abnormally high insulin levels, which may lead to type 2 diabetes, analysis of data from a group of children referred to University at Buffalo pediatric endocrinologists has shown.