The History of the AIMS Education Foundation

AIMS Education Foundation began with a grant in the early 1980’s to explore why teachers were not teaching math and science in a more hands-on, engaging way. What the directors of that grant-funded project discovered was that teachers were open and even anxious to teach in such a way, but they lacked the kinds of activities that could be used in the classroom to give students those experiences. Over the years of the grant, a group of at least 40 teachers wrote activities that were then combined into books, which became the first AIMS products.  AIMS Education Foundation has continued to produce these hands-on, engaging math and science activities now for over 30 years.

There is so much more that is known today, through research, about how students come to know very specific concepts like the whole number sequence, measurement, fractions, and so on. While there are efforts in a few places to translate that research into practice, there is so much more that needs to done and can be done. Translating research into practice is a major component of the vision for the future of AIMS.

To achieve this vision, AIMS has now created a new organizational structure - it is called the AIMS Center for Math and Science Education at Fresno Pacific University.  To achieve our vision, we need strong involvement by university faculty and graduate students; and we need a strong connection with other universities, with county offices of education, with school districts, and with other community and state organizations.

Location

Fresno, CA

Disciplines

• Biology
• Chemistry
• Computer Sciences
• Geology and Geophysics
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Education

Affiliation

AIMS Education Foundation / Fresno Pacific University

Website

http://www.aimsedu.org