Winners of the 2009 Governor's Medals
For Science and Technology

The 2009 winners of the of the Utah Governor’s Medals for Science and Technology were announced on Saturday, January 2, 2010. Among the recipients are Professors Larry Cannon and Bob Heal of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Professor Jim Dorward of the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, and Dr. Joel Duffin, the founder and President of Models for Thought, Inc., a company specializing in the development and commercialization of educational software. This team of scholars is being recognized for their creation of the nationally and internationally renowned National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM), a digital library of computer applets for K-12 mathematics instruction.

Learning mathematics at any level requires students to be engaged in the subject. One way to enhance engagement is through the use of physical objects—manipulatives—such as blocks. The NLVM is the result of an NSF funded project to create a collection of computer manipulatives and interactive learning tools for students in elementary and middle schools. These tools allow students to interactively explore properties of objects and functions, relate and compare functions, and to visualize probability processes and data analyses. The NLVM is available to teachers of mathematics as a classroom resource. It is housed in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Utah State University http://nlvm.usu.edu/ and during regular school days accounts for approximately half of all the internet traffic at USU. The NLVM team have previously been featured in USU and College of Science publications. To read this article, click here.

The Governor’s Medals for Science and Technology were established in 1987 to celebrate the lifetime achievements and distinguished service in science and technology of people and companies in the state of Utah. Congratulations to Bob, Larry, Joel, and Jim for this outstanding recognition of their contributions to mathematics education.