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.

Middle School Engineers

Burnsville’s budding engineers?:

The exercise is part of a pre-engineering program called Project Lead the Way, which aims to whet students’ appetites for engineering education and possibly careers.

Through a Kern Family Foundation grant, District 191 is providing PLTW in seventh grade this year, with plans to extend it to eighth grade next year and possibly to the high school level in subsequent years.
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“Problem-solving is the rest of their lives,” she said. “If they’re seeing the relevance between the math they’re learning out of a book and a project they’re doing, it sticks.”

Great stuff. Getting kids to actually apply concepts is not only fun but the best way to learn. A bunch of previous posts about k-12 engineering education and experiential learning: k-12 Engineering Education – Middle School Students in Solar Car Competition – Robots Wrestling, Students Learning – What’s so Exciting About Engineering? – Middle School Science Teacher – K-12 Engineering Outreach Programs – NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education – Science Opportunities for Students – Why Schools Don’t Educate – Engineering is Elementary – Excellence in K-12 Mathematics and Science Teaching – Fun k-12 Science and Engineering Learning – K-12 Engineering Education Grant for Purdue – Colorado Science Teacher of the Year and on and on…

Inspiring Students to be Engineers

Celeste Baine

Celeste Baine Recognized for Exciting Students About Engineering

Celeste Baine, a biomedical engineer and director of the Engineering Education Service Center based in Eugene, Oregon, was acknowledged for her outstanding accomplishments in motivating and inspiring students to pursue careers in engineering. Winner of the 2005 Norm Augustine Award, Ms. Baine is credited for being an outstanding contributor to the nationwide efforts to increase engineering student enrollment.

A new monthly journal, Engineering Education Advocate is available from the Engineering Education Service Center.

Related:

Nobel Laureates Speaking to High School in Japan

Nobel laureates aiming to spur creativity / Shirakawa, Tanaka to give students lecture

Shirakawa became interested in science journalism, and even sat in during lectures offered by the Japan Association of Science and Technology Journalists. He is now enthusiastic about giving lectures to, and teaching, young scientists.

Research is important for scientists, but it is also important that they share their knowledge with the public, and people to better understand the subject, he said.

Shirakawa graduated from the Science and Engineering Department of Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he obtained a doctorate in engineering in 1966.

In 2000, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of conductive polymers.

Our previous post, Scientists and Students, discussed having practicing scientists address students. Scientist say they are too busy and do not get credit for such efforts – hopefully these Nobel prize winners can help show how important such direct contact can be.

Related: Science Education in the 21st Century – blog posts about k-12 science and engineering education – Childrens View of Scientists in the United Kingdom – 20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World – Nobel Laureate Discusses Protein Power

Open Access Education Materials

Watch a video of Richard Baraniuk (Rice University professor speaking at TED) discussing Connexions: an open-access education publishing system. The content available through Connexions includes short content modules such as:

What is Engineering??:

Engineering is the endeavor that creates, maintains, develops, and applies technology for societies’ needs and desires.
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One of the first distinctions that must be made is between science and engineering.
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Science is the study of what is and engineering is the creation of can be.

and: Protein Folding, as well as full courses, such as: Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering I and Physics for K-12.

Related: Google technical talk webcasts (including a presentation by Richard Baraniuk at Google) – podcasts of Technical Talks at Google – science podcast posts – Berkeley and MIT courses online

Fun k-12 Science and Engineering Learning

photo of robots

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Initiatives in Pre-College Education (CIPCE):

For too long now the nation’s best research universities have often sat idle while our the problems of our system of public school education have reached crisis proportion. Rensselaer, through CIPCE, intends to take the lead in forging new relationships which will become models for others to follow.

A bold declaration and vision which, thankfully, they back up with action.

CIPCE works closely with Rensselaer’s Academy of Electronic Media to develop K-12 interactive multimedia materials and to educate teachers in their use. We are interested in studying how cutting edge educational technologies can affect teaching and learning in the classroom.

They offer several Interactive MultiMedia downloads form their site. We have added a directory of sites that offer k-12 resources (ciriculum, tools, etc. for teachers) and interesting online and offline resources for sudents: science education sites as part of our science links directory.
Robotics for k-12 see: Continue reading →

Tracking Narwhals in Greenland

photo of Narwal pod

Tracking Narwhals in Greenland:

From August 2006 to March 2007, scientists from the University of Washington and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources will instrument 8-10 narwhals with satellite-linked time-depth-temperature recorders to track whale movements, diving behavior, and ocean temperature structure in Baffin Bay. The instruments will collect water column temperature profiles in the pack ice to more than 1500 meters in depth when narwhals make a fall migration from north Greenland to their wintering grounds in Baffin Bay. Narwhals have never been observed or studied in their winter habitat in central Baffin Bay due to dense ice cover, offshore location, and logistics, so this is a very exciting opportunity for all participants.

A collection of inquiry-and National Science Education Standards-based lessons plans for grades 5-12 that have been specifically designed for this expedition..

Narwhal whales (Monodon monoceros) have been called the unicorn whale due to the tooth that grows strait out from their head up to 8 feet. More information via NOAA also see: A Whale’s Amazing Tooth.

photo: A pod of narwhals from northern Canada, August 2005 – larger

Math and Science Teacher Shortage

Lack of math, science teachers prompts U.S. alarm by Ledyard King:

The lack of certified science and math teachers is a growing quandary for schools around the nation, particularly those in poor neighborhoods. Lawmakers in Washington are proposing to spend billions over the next several years to encourage more teachers to enter those subject fields.
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Government money could help replicate programs like the University of Pennsylvania Science Teachers Institute, which — at no cost — gives current science teachers an intensive, 26-month course to give them a deeper understanding of science and improve their delivery to students.

This article (from January of this year) is not new information – the shortage of qualified teachers has been a problem for quite some time.

Blog posts related to k-12 science education

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World (pdf document) from the National Science Resources Center

Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist”–Father of the Green Revolution”
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The results of Dr. Borlaug’s work are encouraging: India, for example, harvests six times more wheat today than it did only 40 years ago. This increase in wheat production in poor countries has been called the “Green Revolution.” It has been written about Dr. Borlaug that he has saved more lives than anyone else who ever lived.

For his scientific achievements, Dr. Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Today, at age 90, Dr. Borlaug remains active in science as a distinguished professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M University

Others include:

  • Tim Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist—Inventor of the World Wide Web
  • George Washington Carver, Inventor/Chemist (1861−1943)—Saving Agriculture in the South
  • Ayanna Howard, Engineer—Robotics Pioneer, and

    • Continue reading →

    Science Opportunities for Students

    Girls in Science camping trip photo

    The Girls In Science blog documents a program for Roosevelt Middle School students in San Diego. It provides a great example of what can been done:

    Wow, what a year it’s been for our Girls In Science (GIS) program! In the span of one short school year, we met with 30 different presenters, covering topics from veterinary pathology to behavioral research to visual communication in primates to cytogenetics… We met sea lions, nearly extinct golden frogs, carnivorous plants, marsh birds, Mei Sheng the giant panda, Mexican gray wolves, and a black tarantula named Vivica. We dabbled in exotic animal nutrition, GPS mapping, and poop sampling. And we spent a glorious day at the La Brea Tar Pits learning about Southern California as it was during the last Ice Age!

    Virtually all of the scientists we met with were women, but we tossed a couple of males into the mix just for variety’s sake. One of them, Michael Puzzo, is a field biologist who tracks mountain lions throughout Southern California.

    Continue reading →