We’re honored and thrilled to announce that the Guru Krupa Foundation has awarded Wiki Education a grant this year in support of our Wikipedia Student Program’s STEM classes. The Guru Krupa Foundation supports causes and projects that align with the value system of Hinduism, primarily helping those less fortunate, supporting causes related to the acquisition of knowledge, and preserving heritage and knowledge.
“Wiki Education’s Wikipedia Student Program is an elegant fit for two of our core priorities: preserving knowledge and nurturing students in higher study programs,” said Mukund Padmanabhan, President of the Guru Krupa Foundation. “Wikipedia is already an impressive free resource, but it takes work to make sure it continues to reflect advancements in knowledge. I’m thrilled that our foundation can support a small but mighty organization improving STEM communication and information on Wikipedia.”
In our program, STEM students gain critical communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and digital media literacy skills while adding a wealth of knowledge to one of the most far-reaching sources of information in the world. Wikipedia has more links from search engines than any other website, and is often the first search result listed when people look for scientific information.
The impact of our Communicating Science initiative is not only in the student learning, but also that hundreds of millions of people get greater access to high-quality, reliable scientific information on Wikipedia thanks to the pedagogical work the students do. So far, 44,000 students have worked on 44,000 scientific articles, adding nearly 40 million words to Wikipedia. This is nearly as much content as was in the last print edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. The new science content added by students has been read billions of times!
When it comes to scientific literacy, undergraduates are in a unique position. They are studying advanced science and understand the jargon of their field, but are still connected to those who are not, and remember what it’s like. The challenge of explaining what they have come to learn (not just for an exam, but to really be understood) makes them ideal candidates for bridging the gap between dense academic scholarship and a curious public.
Thank you again to the Guru Krupa Foundation for your support of learners everywhere.
