In an article in Metro New York newspaper about an all-girls chess tournament among charter schools in New York City, Fernand Brunschwig, an adjunct professor of science at Teachers College and cofounder and chair of STEMteachersNYC, said chess places a “strong emphasis on skills in planning ahead,” and on keeping track of multiple details. “This is very close to what scientists do when they are solving a problem or trying to develop a model that successfully predicts how real world experiments will turn out,” Brunschwig said. “So, assuming chess is taught well, I would say that chess has quite a lot of potential for overlapping with and reinforcing what the best STEM teachers are doing.”

Since 2011, Brunschwig has organized annual summer Modeling Instruction Workshops at Teachers College for high school science teachers.

Link: Charter school working to fill gender gap in competitive chess

The views expressed in the previous article are solely those of the speakers to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, or staff either of Teachers College or of Columbia University.

Published Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015