Supplementing Science Education with Khan Academy
Written by Amgen Foundation Staff
In 2015, the Amgen Foundation entered into a yearlong partnership with Khan Academy to help expand its free, online education offering to include science content. We’d seen how the power of technology can help improve science education and literacy around the world, and we were eager to do our part in those efforts.
As part of our partnership, Amgen Foundation supported the creation of a series of new videos, articles and quizzes to help students taking biology courses at the Advanced Placement (AP) through introductory college levels.
Two years later, we had a chance to speak with some of the students who used this new science content, and they all shared remarkable feedback on how Khan Academy was able to help them achieve their education goals. Below is a sampling of our conversations with them:
“Khan Academy is really helpful for learning a lot of new concepts quickly,” said Agnes Tan, who used the science content to study for her medical school entry exams. “It’s not dry like the textbooks, and Sal’s approach makes it easy to remember key concepts.”
“When Sal talks to us in his lectures, you can tell he sees the problem the same way we do,” said Derek Wan, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, who used Khan Academy to study for a summer course during his freshman year. “He irons out all the kinks in your understanding.”
“I model my presentation style after the Khan Academy videos,” said Elizabeth Caff, a graduate student at Oregon State University, who also used the content to study during a summer course. “No matter your knowledge level, the Khan videos are still really approachable and really understandable.”
These student stories are just a snippet of the great feedback we’ve received on the science content, which is one of the many reasons why we’re excited to continue our partnership with Khan Academy through a new, three-year, $3 million grant to further expand its biology content library. We are committed to providing a high-quality science education to all, and Khan Academy is the perfect partner to make that happen.
Check back at amgeninspires.com for updates on progress and more details of the partnership, and visit khanacademy.org to see all the educational resources Khan Academy provides.
