Category Archives: K-12

About or related to primary (k-12) science and engineering education. Likely of interest to teachers and administrators. Teachers may also find many of the posts we feel are of interests to students interested in science and engineering useful.

Evolution is Fundamental to Science

Evolution is absolutely fundamental to scientific thinking. Any country, or part of a country (or those wishing to lead a country) that teaches evolution as though it is some alternative way of looking at the facts (that can be compared to creationism/intelligent design, as science, for example) is an embarrassment. Unfortunately the United States is home to far too much of this thinking – which explains why scientific literacy is so low. Luckily there are also plenty in the USA that understand science. The National Academy of Science has published, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, in which a

group of experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine explain the fundamental methods of science, document the overwhelming evidence in support of biological evolution, and evaluate the alternative perspectives offered by advocates of various kinds of creationism, including “intelligent design.” The book explores the many fascinating inquiries being pursued that put the science of evolution to work in preventing and treating human disease, developing new agricultural products, and fostering industrial innovations. The book also presents the scientific and legal reasons for not teaching creationist ideas in public school science classes.

The scientific theory of evolution still has details that can be debated – which is what the scientists should and will do (seeking out evidence to support such details). The idea that people today can question evolution is beyond amazing to me. It is much easier to understand some people thinking you would sail off the edge of the earth 500 years ago than anyone in the USA thinking there is any serious debate about evolution (there are parts of the world where the educational system does not give everyone a chance to see the available evidence, so I can forgive some in the world for being ignorant – not having been exposed to the evidence). And I guess there are parts of the USA educational system that are nearly so poor also where a gullible student could not see the truth. But in the USA the evidence is easily at hand – you have to intentionally remain ignorant to somehow not understand the truth of evolution.

What Everyone Should Learn:

Dr. Vincent Cerf: “I would want people to really understand the theory of evolution and the origin of species. The power of cumulative, adaptive change in the genome, over the course of billions of years and changing conditions, is hard for many people to fully appreciate.”

LEGO Project Inspires Students

LEGO project inspires students

After school every Thursday at New Haven Elementary more than 60 students gather to discuss energy sources, plan building models, and learn more about science and engineering. The group, made up of first-, second- and third-graders, is participating in Junior First LEGO League (JFLL). JFLL is a worldwide organization that introduces children to concepts of teamwork and basic design skills.

Karen Cheser, elementary director of teaching and learning for Boone County Schools, brought the program to the district. It relies on 10 volunteer coaches including school teachers, a robotics engineer, parents, and business owners to guide students.
…
“Participation is very active because of the hands-on component of the work,” Fortner said. “Students see it as a club, but we look at it as an extension of the school day, because it teaches fundamental science concepts, it encourages teamwork, and builds social skills.”

The First Lego League web site provides information on local programs all over the world.

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy

The Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy is designed to use robotics to excite children about science and technology and to help create a more technologically literate society. This seems like quite a nice idea to me.

When students design and build robots they study math, science, engineering, and physics. Robotics Education is the “Premier Integrator” in education today. Students are immersed in geometry, trigonometry, electronics, programming, computer control and mechanics while using industry standard software and hardware. They learn to compromise when working in teams. They learn the importance of time management and resource allocation. They are introduced to the concept of systems and systems analysis.
…
Currently there are over 80 companies in the Southwestern Pennsylvania region that design, sell, or service robots. Carnegie Mellon University, the governing body of the NREC, has a world-renowned reputation for robotics. NASA, one of the funders of the consortium, has an unparalleled commitment to education. Pittsburgh and The National Robotics Engineering Consortium have all the components necessary to become the world leader in Robotics Education.

Why is it important? Most of the technologies that we depend on daily were developed in the last ten years. The only constant is change, and change is exponential in the digitally driven world in which we find ourselves. If you believe as we do that it is the scientists and technologists that will have the greatest impact on the quality of your life in the future, then you will find the following statistics alarming.

A Child’s View of the OLPC Laptop

A child’s view of the $100 laptop

Enter Rufus Cellan-Jones. He is nine, has far more experience of games consoles than computers, and has strong views on most matters. “Looks fun,” was his only comment when I handed over the small, green and white laptop, explaining that he was the only child in Britain to have one. But very quickly he was up and running. All I did was give him the security code for our home wireless network so he could take the XO online. The rest he figured out for himself
…
“I just seemed to work it out. It was rather easy. I didn’t even need help.” Surprise, surprise, his first discovery was a game. “I found Block Party. It’s like Tetris. I’m now up to Level 7.” I thought my young games fanatic might stick there but he moved on. “Then I discovered paint. You can use pencils, change the texture, use different sizes of brush.” Even better, there was an animation programme called Etoys. “That’s my favourite.You make things. You can see tutorials and demos. Then you can make a new project. I’ve made a crazy UFO which you can move.”
…
With no help from his Dad, he has learned far more about computers than he knew a couple of weeks ago, and the XO appears to be a more creative tool than the games consoles which occupy rather too much of his time. The One Laptop Per Child project is struggling to convince developing countries providing computers for children is as important as giving them basic facilities like water or electricity. Unusually, Rufus does not have an opinion about that controversy, but he does have a verdict on the laptop. “It’s great,” he says.

USA Teens 29th in Science

The 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report has been released. The report examines the science of 15 year olds from 57 countries in math, science and reading. Once you get passed the poor design of the PISA web site you can find a great deal of data (which gives a great deal more depth to the results than just a simple listing of the top countries by mean score). But that list is interesting too.

*Rant* I find it amazing that sites can be so poorly run that they fail to even display without Javascript enabled. That is how badly run the PISA web site is, though. Here is the home page they direct you too: www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html – they need to have some people read about web usability (they should hire someone that knows how to apply the ideas of Jakob Neilsen, Jared Spool or 37 Signals).

Results for the Science portion (rank – country – mean score)(I am not listing all countries):

1 – Finland – 563
2 – Hong Kong – 542
3 – Canada – 534
4 – Taiwan – 532
6 – Japan – 531
7 – New Zealand – 530
8 – Australia – 527
9 – Netherlands – 525
11 – Korea – 522
13 – Germany – 516
14 – United Kingdom – 515
25 – France – 495
29 – USA – 489
49 – Mexico – 410

Playing Dice and Children’s Numeracy

My father, Willaim Hunter, a professor of statistics and of Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, was a guest speaker for my second grade class (I think it was 2nd) to teach us about numbers – using dice. He gave every kid a die. I remember he asked all the kids what number do you think will show up when you roll the die. 6 was the answer from about 80% of them (which I knew was wrong – so I was feeling very smart).

Then he had the kids roll the die and he stood up at the front to create a frequency distribution of what was actually rolled. He was all ready for them to see how wrong they were and learn it was just as likely for any of the numbers on the die to be rolled. But as he asked each kid about what they rolled something like 5 out of the first 6 said they rolled a 6. He then modified the exercise a bit and had the kid come up to the front and roll the die on the teachers desk. Then my Dad read the number off the die and wrote on the chart 🙂

This nice blog post, reminded me of that story: Kids’ misconceptions about numbers — and how they fix them

in the real study, conducted by John Opfer and Rober Siegler, the kids used lines with just 0 and 1000 labeled. They were then given numbers within that range and asked to draw a vertical line through the number line where each number fell (they used a new, blank number line each time). The figure above represents (in red) the average results for a few of the numbers used in the study. As you can see, the second graders are way off, especially for lower numbers. They typically placed the number 150 almost halfway across the number line! Fourth graders perform nearly as well as adults on the task, putting all the numbers in just about the right spot.

But there’s a pattern to the second-graders’ responses. Nearly all the kids (93 were tested) understood that 750 was a larger number than 366; they just squeezed too many large numbers on the far-right side of the number line. In fact, their results show more of a logarithmic pattern than the proper linear pattern.

Girls Sweep Top Honors at Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology

Girls Make History by Sweeping Top Honors at a Science Contest

Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, both 17 and seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School on Long Island, split the first prize – a $100,000 scholarship – in the team category for creating a molecule that helps block the reproduction of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria.

Isha Himani Jain, 16, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pa., placed first in the individual category for her studies of bone growth in zebra fish, whose tail fins grow in spurts, similar to the way children’s bones do. She will get a $100,000 scholarship.
…
Three-quarters of the finalists have a parent who is a scientist. The parents of Alicia Darnell, who won second place, are medical researchers at Rockefeller University, and her maternal grandparents were scientists, too. Isha Himani Jain, who took home the top individual prize, published her first research paper with her father, a professor at Lehigh University, when she was 10 or 11; her mother is a doctor.

Read about projects by the finalists.

Hands-on High School Engineering Education in Minnesota

Hands-on engineering education in Chaska

Chaska High is one of about a half-dozen schools in the west-metro area that let students get a taste of engineering work with project-based classes, which can qualify for college credit.
…
Chaska plans to add robotics and manufacturing courses to its technology department next year. More than 100 middle and high schools participate in the program statewide. In the west-metro area, Eden Prairie, Maple Grove, Park Center, Robbinsdale Armstrong, Robbinsdale Cooper and Wayzata high schools offer Project Lead the Way courses.

Project Lead the Way is based on research suggesting that real-world long-term projects that integrate math, science and technology boost achievement and expose students to potential careers. Colleges and universities, including partners such as the University of Minnesota and St. Cloud State University, view the program as a way to help strengthen the skills of incoming students.

Project Lead the Way continues to encourage engineering education for primary and secondary schools. Project Lead the Way builds strategic partnerships among middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities, and industry to provide students with the knowledge and experience necessary to pursue engineering or engineering technology programs in college.

Why is the Sky Blue?

Here is a a nice post explaining why we see blue when we look at the sky, Why Is The Sky Blue?:

Most of the atmospheric gases are transparent to visible light. They don’t filter the Sun’s light and make it yellow, as a yellow filter would. Besides, if colored gases made the Sun appear yellow, where does the blue come from? The part of the atmosphere that changes the Sun’s light is the molecules and tiny particles that are floating in it.

There are particles of water–tiny droplets too small to be seen as clouds. There are particles of organic material–smog or haze, condensed from volatile organic chemicals that have gotten into the air. There are particles of sulfuric acid from volcanoes and power plants. There are molecules of gases in the atmosphere.

These tiny particles, much smaller than the wavelengths of sunlight, scatter the sunlight as photons from the Sun interact with the particles. This is called Rayleigh scattering after the British physicist who described how it works. (Larger particles, like the water droplets in clouds, are closer to the wavelengths of sunlight, and they scatter it differently. This is why clouds are not blue.)

Science explained – quick overviews of scientific concepts: How Does That Happen? Science Provides the Answer – Incredible Insects – 10 Science Facts You Should Know – What Everyone Should Learn – Science Summary: Photosynthesis – String Theory in 1 page – How do antibiotics kill bacteria?

One Laptop Per Child – Give One Get One

photo of One Child One Laptop

Why you should buy an OLPC XO Laptop:

The laptop hardware is really impressive. This laptop is really small – dimensions are 242mm Ã— 228mm Ã— 32mm (9.5″ x 9″ x 1.25″) and weight is about 1.5KG (3.3 lbs). There is a 7.5″ 200dpi high resolution display capable of displaying 1200×900 pixels in grayscale (usable in direct sunlight!) or 800×600 in colour. The processor is relatively low-powered, but probably fine for the types of things most people will use this laptop for. There is no hard drive (storage is 1GB of flash which you could increase with USB drives or memory sticks or an SD card if you needed to), a rubber membrane water resistant keyboard, gamepad, touchpad, audio, built-in camera, integrated wireless (both 802.11b/g and 802.11s “mesh” networking support), a long-life battery (I’ve heard different stories, but it sounds like battery life will go into the double digits!), rechargeable with AC/DC power, solar or hand/foot generator, etc. On top of all this, the laptop is the most energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly laptop ever made!
…
The OS is a paired-down version of Fedora Linux with a custom Sugar graphical user interface and Bitfrost security platform. There are programs for internet browsing, chat, wikis, word processing, and most other “standard” things you would need to do on a laptop (as well as “non-standard” utilities for things like music synthesis/composition, drawing, games, etc). The standard programming environment consists of Python, Javascript, Etoys (Squeak/Smalltalk), Csound, LOGO, and others.

We mentioned the Give One Get One program last month – you can buy one for yourself with the purchase of one for a child in the developing world. The cost is $400, $200 qualifies as a charitable deduction (the gift for the child). That offer is available now (for the next 12 days). One of our popular posts recounted what kids in India learned using a computer.