Michael J Strauss

Michael Strauss was a professor of chemistry at the University of Vermont (UVM) from 1968 to 2003. His academic life focused on teaching chemistry and on research in physical-organic and medicinal chemistry. Since 2003 he has been teaching drawing for the Honors College, the College of Arts and Sciences, and Continuing Education at UVM. He has also been involved with outreach efforts in grade schools and high schools around Vermont, focused on science education. In all of his classes, both art...See more

Michael Strauss was a professor of chemistry at the University of Vermont (UVM) from 1968 to 2003. His academic life focused on teaching chemistry and on research in physical-organic and medicinal chemistry. Since 2003 he has been teaching drawing for the Honors College, the College of Arts and Sciences, and Continuing Education at UVM. He has also been involved with outreach efforts in grade schools and high schools around Vermont, focused on science education. In all of his classes, both art and science, the iterative process of learning how to see, draw, and revise was paramount. There was considerable overlap between his university teaching and his outreach efforts in community schools. He had, along with colleagues in the College of Education at UVM, a National Science Foundation grant from the Teacher Enhancement Program to help train teachers in both active learning pedagogy, and content in chemistry, physics and geology. And for about a decade, he was also heavily involved with the Writing-to-Learn and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movements, traveling around the country giving workshops and meeting with educators in both elementary schools and colleges to talk about science education. See less