Students vie in solar car competition (unfortunately the link has been broken – *sigh*) by Rob Seman:
Their racer, a sleek black-and-yellow aluminum number called “Yellow Stinger,” took the overall award for the annual event after placing second in the craftsmanship, innovation and technical merit categories.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress from the United States Department of Education is the definitive report on k-12 science education based on testing 4th, 8th and 12th grade students. The report provides a huge amount of data on testing results. At first look, it seems basically things stayed the same over the last 5 years.
Various differences are shown (for example: “Most states showed no improvement at grades 4 and 8. Five of the 37 participating states, however, did improve between 2000 and 2005 – and did so at both grades.”). However, I remain a bit skeptical of reading much into such claims. Even if you changed nothing (just retest the students the next month say) and then look for differences between the two sets of data it is possible to find seemingly interesting differences. It is very easy to be fooled when you have a large pool of data and search for any differences that seem interesting.
We commented on one example of why it is important to be careful in making conclusions based on data recently (in our management improvement blog). Most often people look for the differences to highlight the differences. That creates a bias to find such differences, which leads me to be a bit skeptical of such claims without an explanation of why the data is convincing that such a difference is significant and not just variation in the data.
The data from the test does provide a resource for those interested in exploring these matters, which is good.
The Department of Education provides sample questions online. Try them yourself: they are interesting. Unfortunately, for some questions requiring written responses, they don’t actually provide what the answer should be.
Science scores up in grade four, stalled in grades 8 and 12
News stories:
Nationally, the proficiency percentage for fourth-grade students is 29 percent, and 30 percent for those in eighth grade.
Wide achievement gaps persist for California’s economically disadvantaged students, with 73 percent scoring below the basic level, and among its ethnic minorities, with 74 percent of black eighth-graders and 73 percent of Hispanic eighth-graders scoring below basic.
228 middle school students compteted in the prestigious individual MATHCOUNTS competition. Daesun Yim of West Windsor, NJ won the national champion title and the $8,000 Donald G. Weinert Scholarship, a trip to U.S. Space Camp and a notebook computer by answering:
A jar contains 8 red balls, 6 green balls and 24 yellow balls. In order to make the probability of choosing a yellow ball from the jar on the first selection equal to1/2, Kerry will add x red balls and y green balls. What is the average of x and y?
Answer: 5
In the team competition, Virginia captured the title of National Team Champions. Team members include Jimmy Clark of Falls Church, Divya Garg of Annandale, Brian Hamrick of Annandale, Daniel Li of Fairfax and coach Barbara Burnett of Falls Church.
Read more about the 2006 competition. Watch video highlights from the 2005 competition.
MATHCOUNTS is a national enrichment, coaching and competition program that promotes middle school mathematics achievement through grassroots involvement in every U.S. state and territory.
Nearly 1,500 students from 47 countries competed for nearly $4 million in scholarships and prizes at the 57th Intel International Science and Engineering Fair this week.
The grand prize winners of $50,000 scholarships were:
Information on all of the 2006 award winners as well as past winners.
Five Indian students win Intel awards:
The students excelled among a record-setting, worldwide pool of 1,482 competitors from 47 countries, regions and territories, setting the bar for future scientific research in three disciplines.
Teen’s project places second at science fair
Demystifying technology for high-schoolers by Greg Rienzi, Johns Hopkins University News:
The initiative is based upon a successful program the Whiting School developed five years ago for students in Montgomery County. The program was expanded last year to include students in Baltimore City and Baltimore County.
…
The participants in the program will spend four weeks learning the basics of engineering as they conduct hands-on laboratory experiments and complete assignments that range from building a better mousetrap to assembling a digital circuit that operates a robot.
Johns Hopkins will continue to accept applications until June 1st, or until classes are full.
For more information see: Engineering Innovation from The Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
From my favorite science teacher blog, Ms. Frizzle, the Electron Cloud Analogy:
Learning science from Ms. Frizzle sure seems like it would be fun.
President George W. Bush has announced that 100 educators will receive the annual Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching for 2005. The award was established in 1983. This year, the White House recognizes the best of the Nation’s 7th – 12th grade mathematics and science teachers.
A national panel of distinguished scientists, mathematicians, and educators recommends teachers to receive the Presidential Awards which are administered by the National Science Foundation.
Awardees receive a $10,000 educational grant for their schools and a trip to Washington, D.C., to accept a certificate. The teachers will be in the Nation’s capital from May 1-6, 2006, to receive the award and participate in a variety of educational and celebratory events.
During the week the teachers will tour the White House and be honored in an awards ceremony hosted by Dr. John H. Marburger III, Science Advisor to the President and Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. They will also meet with members of Congress and the Administration to discuss the latest issues in mathematics and science teaching.
For a complete listing of the 2005 awardees visit the Presidential Awardees for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching web site.
What’s so exciting about engineering? by Leigh M. Chowdhary:
A crew of 150 girls age 10 to 14 from four Chicago area schools were scientists for a day. Some kids used static electricity from balloons to move sticks through a racecourse. Others watched videos of female inventors–who created things such as smear-proof lipstick and Kevlar (a substance used in bullet-proof vests).
This article discusses a Wow! That’s Engineering event.
Previous post on Science for Kids – learning through action.
Women in engineering change the world around us for the better every day! Tell us in 100 words or less about a promotion that you would create to make the world a better place and you could win one of these prizes. Deadline is April 19th!
‘Sciencing’ with kids by Prakash Rao:
Children’s experiences need to be real, concrete and [tangible]. We should never get carried away by just contents and facts. Link experiences to children’s life. Then they will feel a desire to know.
Children are naturally inquisitive. Mainly we need to provide opportunities for them to do what they would do naturally. In previous posts we have highlighted many ways to give kids the chance to learn and figure out how things work.
Press release from the US Department of Education: U.S. Science Lessons Focus More on Activities, Less on Content, Study Shows
A video study of 8th-grade science classrooms in the United States and four other countries found U.S. teachers focused on a variety of activities to engage students but not in a consistent way that developed coherent and challenging science content.
In comparison, classrooms in Australia, the Czech Republic, Japan, and the Netherlands exposed 8th graders to science lessons characterized by a core instructional approach that held students to high content standards and expectations for student learning.
The National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences today released these and other findings in a report titled Teaching Science in Five Countries: Results From the TIMSS 1999 Video Study that draws on analysis of 439 randomly selected videotaped classroom lessons in the participating countries.
The results of the newly released science study highlight variations across the countries in how science lessons are organized, how the science content is developed for the students, and how the students participate in actively doing science work.
For example, in Japan, the lessons emphasized identifying patterns in data and making connections among ideas and evidence. Australian lessons developed basic science content ideas through inquiry. Whereas in the Netherlands, independent student learning is given priority. Dutch students often kept track of a long-term set of assignments, checking their work in a class answer book as they proceeded independently.
In the Czech Republic, students were held accountable for mastering challenging and often theoretical science content in front of their peers through class discussions, work at the blackboard, and oral quizzes.
In the United States, lessons kept students busy on a variety of activities such as hands-on work, small group discussions, and other “motivational” activities such as games, role-playing, physical movement, and puzzles. The various activities, however, were not typically connected to the development of science content ideas. More than a quarter of the U.S. lessons were focused almost completely on carrying out the activity as opposed to learning a specific idea.
The science report is the second released by TIMSS 1999 Video Study. The first report, focused on 8th grade mathematics teaching, was released in 2003.
To view the reports and for more information: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
via: Study suggests U.S. science teaching falls short on content