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.

Math and Science Education Assessment

Science Friday podcast (NPR radio programming) on the urban institute study mentioned a few weeks ago in: The Importance of Science Education.

Conventional wisdom says that U.S. students don’t measure up well against students in many foreign countries when it comes to math and science skills. But is that really true? A team of researchers have re-assessed the results of several common measures of science education success, and they say the true picture may not be as gloomy as some analysts have said.

“When it comes to math and science, American students are no worse, and often score better, than students from many leading countries,” said Harold Salzman, one of the authors of the new Urban Institute report “Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand.” The researchers argue that some of the rankings produced by measures such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) are due to statistically insignificant differences in scoring.

Read the actual report – Into the Eye of the Storm, Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand by B. Lindsay Lowell, Harold Salzman.

HP Technology for Teaching Grant Initiative

The value of the grant award to each school is approximately $40,000. Based on the outcomes of those projects, some recipients may have the opportunity to receive additional, higher-value grants from HP in 2009. The HP Technology for Teaching Grant is targeted to K–12 public schools in the United States, including Puerto Rico.

HP will select teams of five teachers from approximately 110 schools to receive the equipment and professional development support they need to effectively integrate technology into their instruction. Preference will be given to projects that address mathematics and/or science. Preference will also be given to schools that serve a high proportion of low-income students, relative to their district or state’s free and reduced price lunch percentages.

Proposals must be completed in an online grant application system HP Technology for Teaching website (which will open 8 January 2008) and must be submitted no later than 5 PM Pacific time on Thursday, February 14, 2008.

The Importance of Science Education

The Science Education Myth by Vivek Wadhwa:

The authors of the report, the Urban Institute’s Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell, show that math, science, and reading test scores at the primary and secondary level have increased over the past two decades, and U.S. students are now close to the top of international rankings. Perhaps just as surprising, the report finds that our education system actually produces more science and engineering graduates than the market demands.

The study certainly sounds interesting. I can’t find it (update Vivek Wadhwa provided the link – which will work Monday, also see his comment below), but found an article (which wasn’t easy) by the authors of the report: The Real Technology Challenge. The main point of the article, The Real Technology Challenge, seems to be that the USA should focus on globalization (and focus on educating scientists and engineers to work in a global world).

As I have said before I disagree with those that believe the USA is producing more science and engineering graduates than the market demands. Smart leaders know the huge positive impacts of a large, well educated science and engineering workforce.

Countries that succeed in producing more quality graduates while creating the best economic environment to take advantage of technology innovation (follow this link – it is one of the most important posts about what makes silicon valley so powerful a force at doing just that) are going to benefit greatly. My guess is the USA will be one of those countries; not by reducing the focus on science and engineering education but by increasing it. If not, other countries will, and the USA will suffer economically. The USA also needs to continue to push the economic and entrepreneurship advantages – doing that well is very difficult to achieve and the USA maintains a stronger advantage in that realm – but I will be very surprised if other countries don’t continue to make gains in this area. Even so doing so is much more challenging than just improving education (which is difficult itself just not nearly as difficult) and the USA can continue to benefit from this combination with the right policies.

Primary Science Education in California

Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley Science Survey:

California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, is home to much US innovation in science and technology. Recent national reports have illuminated the importance of science education in the elementary grades and described concerns for US leadership in science,1 the importance of fostering interest in science early in life,2 and issues with promoting high quality science instruction in the elementary grades,3 nationally,4 and in California.5

At the same time, this region produces inadequate achievement results among its students. Results of the 2005 National Assessment of Education Progress 4th grade science test indicate that California ranked 2nd lowest of all states on eighth grade science achievement, only above Mississippi. During spring 2007, results on the 5th grade California Standards Test (CST) in Science indicate that only 37% of California students and approximately 46% of Bay Area students scored proficient or above6. This means that even in the Bay Area, over half the 5th graders are failing to reach proficiency in science.
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Eighty percent (80%) of K–5th grade multiple-subject teachers who are responsible for teaching science in their classrooms reported spending 60 minutes or less per week on science, with 16% of teachers spending no time at all on science.

Innovation Academy for High School Students

Innovation Academy students get their feet wet

“They teach us about ocean life and animals — I like that kind of stuff,” she said. “It’s something different.”

Moody High School Innovation Academy students will make three more trips to the field station this semester and another five in the spring. Then they’ll gather up statistics and try to determine environmental trends for the station.

The trips are possible through an agreement made late this summer between the 2-year-old institute and Corpus Christi Independent School District. The Innovation Academy — one of seven academies at Moody — is in its first year and enrolls 75 Moody ninth-grade students and 105 Cunningham Middle School sixth-graders.

“Our kids are becoming very involved in the makeup of Laguna Madre plants and animals, as well as how to document their existence,” said Tina Dellinger, Texas Science Technology Engineering and Math district coordinator. The Innovation Academy is in its second year of a two-year, $750,000 Texas Science Technology Engineering and Math Initiative grant that last year funded academy planning and training and this year is funding its first activities.

Monarch Butterfly Migration

Monarch Butterfly

Helping track the monarch butterfly migration is a very cool interactive learning projects for students. The Monarch Butterfly Journey North site includes a great wealth of resource with real time reports and answers to science questions.:

A massive migration across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas this week resulted in the most spectacular sightings of the season. Most miraculous was the mile of clustering monarchs discovered on Sunday in a sunflower field in Kansas. Just think…It’s the first week of October and migrating monarchs are still being spotted across the north.

From the Monarchs in the Classroom website:

Unlike most other insects in temperate climates, monarch butterflies cannot survive a long cold winter. Every fall, North American monarchs fly south to spend the winter at roosting sites. Monarchs are the only butterflies to make such a long, two-way migration, flying up to 3000 miles in the fall to reach their winter destination. Amazingly, they fly in masses to the same winter roosts, often to the exact same trees. Their migration is more the type we expect from birds or whales than insects. However, unlike birds and whales, individuals only make the round-trip once. It is their children’s grandchildren that return south the following fall.

Monarch Travels (2006 post)

To test their ability to reorient themselves, Dr. Taylor has moved butterflies from Kansas to Washington, D.C. If he releases them right away, he said, they take off due south, as they would have where they were. But if he keeps them for a few days in mesh cages so they can see the sun rise and set, “they reset their compass heading,” he said. “The question is: How?”

$1 Million Grant for National Engineering Education Initiative

Motorola Supports National Engineering Education Initiative with $1 Million Grant

The Motorola Foundation today announced $1 million in support of the National Academy Foundation’s (NAF) Academy of Engineering initiative, which will help create 110 academies in high schools across the country to inspire young people to study science and engineering. In collaboration with Project Lead the Way and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, NAF’s Academy of Engineering initiative will ultimately prepare students for careers in engineering to meet a growing market demand.
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According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs requiring science, engineering, or technical training will increase 24 percent to 6.3 million between 2004 and 2014, creating greater demand for critical thinkers fluent in technology. Yet over the past decade, the NAF has seen declining enrollment and graduation rates in post-secondary engineering programs that can be largely attributed to fewer high school students showing an interest in engineering and technology.

Science Summary: Photosynthesis

Seed’s latest cribsheet, a one page summary of Photosynthesis:

Through the process of photosynthesis, plants, algae, and bacteria use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into the oxygen and food that sustain much of life on Earth. This Cribsheet covers the basics of photosynthesis: where it happens, how light is used in the process, and why we think photosynthesis may have triggered the rise of complex life. In addition, we tell you why plants are green and how photosynthesis could temper climate change—if rainforests and oceanic ecosystems aren’t destroyed.

Textbook Revolution

Textbook Revolution is a resource on free textbooks and free related course materials. In general, I must say the prices of textbooks seem crazy. This is another tool great open access resource.

At Textbook Revolution, you’ll find links to textbooks and select educational resources of all kinds. Some of the books are PDF files, others are viewable only online as e-books. Most books are aimed at undergraduates, but there are at least a few resources at every level, from kindergarten to post-doc. All of the books are offered for free by their respective copyright holders for online viewing. Beyond that, each book is as individual as the author behind it.

Some examples: The Scientist and Engineer’s Guide to Digital Signal Processing by Steven W. Smith; Light and Matter by Benjamin Crowell; A First Course in Linear Algebra by Robert A Beeze; Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide by
Dave Thomas and Introduction to Statistical Thought by Michael Lavine.

While on the subject of textbooks, I will plug my father’s book: Statistics for Experimenters – it is my blog so I get to do what I want 🙂

Young Engineers Build Bridges with Spaghetti

Young engineers build bridges with spaghetti:

Proving that spaghetti is not just for dinner, the students of Johns Hopkins University’s Engineering Innovation summer program used the noodles to build intricate, miniature bridges and then wrecked them — all in the name of science. On Friday afternoon, the eight high school students participating in the competition pitted their engineering know-how against one another to see whose bridge could hold the most weight before splintering into pieces. The competition closed out four weeks of study under the summer program, which was taught by Muhammad Kehnemouyi, a full-time physics professor at Montgomery College, and Fred Katiraie, a full-time math professor at Montgomery College.
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The last team to go consisted of Sruti Bharat, 17, of California, Rohan Bhale, 15, of Olney, and Justin Yin, 17, of Wheaton. The group put weight after weight on the bridge and attached another chain to add more weights, but the bridge remained in one piece.

After adding all the weights available to them, Katiraie ran into another room to retrieve more. The team’s bridge held almost 60 times its actual weight before splintering.