Category Archives: Education

Grade School Engineering

More than 2,200 middle and high schools use engineering courses offered by Project Lead the Way, a Clifton Park, N.Y., nonprofit that receives industry support, up from just 12 when the initiative started in 1997. And Infinity Project, developed out of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is now in 300 schools, up from 12 in 1999. The impact of these initiatives on the ranks of engineers remains to be seen.

Besides creating curricular approaches, groups are lobbying state governments to add engineering to their education standards.

Massachusetts included engineering content in its state science requirements for grades K-12 starting in 2001. New Hampshire began sprinkling engineering and technology concepts into its science curriculum starting last school year. New Jersey incorporated engineering concepts into its state education standards starting in 2004. And more states are following: Texas is working on creating standards for an engineering course that can be used to fulfill a high-school science credit.
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Teaching through problem-solving storybooks that feature characters from around the globe “becomes a lot richer and is liberating for many kids and many teachers,” she says. The curriculum can cost as little as $40 — the price of a teacher’s binder, including lesson plans and one storybook. For about $6,000, a school could furnish materials, refills and a storybook for each student in every grade.

Peru Meteorite Provides Puzzles

Peru meteorite may rewrite rules

Usually, only meteorites made of metal survive the passage through Earth’s atmosphere sufficiently intact to scoop out a crater. But the object which came down in the Puno region of Peru was a relatively fragile stony meteorite. During the fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere, these are thought to fragment into smaller pieces which then scatter over a wide area.

Yet pieces of the estimated 1m-wide meteorite are thought to have stayed together during entry, hitting the ground as one.
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Peter Schultz told the conference that the meteorite was travelling at about 24,000km/h (15,000mph) at the moment of impact – much faster than would be expected. “This just isn’t what we expected,” said Professor Schultz, from Brown University in Providence, US. “It was to the point that many thought this was fake. It was completely inconsistent with our understanding of how stony meteorites act.”
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At the velocity it was travelling, fragments could not escape the “shock-wave” barrier which accompanies the meteorite’s passage through the atmosphere. Instead, the fragments may have reconstituted themselves into another shape, which made them more aerodynamic. Consequently, they encountered less friction during their plunge to Earth, holding together until they reached the ground. “Although [the meteorite] is quickly broken up, it is behaving like a solid mass,” Professor Schultz told the conference.

Excellent article. First it is just interesting. Also it shows how scientists have to learn from what they observe and try to understand what explains the results they see.

HHMI Nurtures Nation’s Best Early Career Scientists

New HHMI Program Aims to Nurture Nation’s Best Early Career Scientists

HHMI will invest more than $300 million in this first group of scientists and plans a second competition in 2011.
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HHMI is focusing on researchers who have led independent laboratories for two to six years at one of the approximately 200 U.S. medical schools, universities, and research institutes that are eligible. Those who are selected by HHMI will receive six-year, non-renewable appointments including full salary and research support while remaining affiliated with their home institution.
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HHMI is seeking scientists from a wide variety of fields, including all areas of basic biological and biomedical research, and areas of chemistry, physics, computer science and engineering that are directly related to biology or medicine.
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Scientists who wish to be considered for this competition must indicate their intention to submit an application by April 30, 2008. The deadline for completed applications is June 10, 2008. Panels of distinguished biomedical researchers will evaluate the candidates’ applications. Final selections are expected to be made by February 2009.

HMMI is an incredible source of funding for science.

Antarctica’s Unique Meteorites

Antarctica’s unique space rocks

Dr Shearer agreed the 4.5-billion-year ages of the meteorites indicated the likely source was an asteroid. “The history of this rock involves partial melting on a fairly primitive body,” he explained. Even if the rocks had been blown off Venus in an impact 4.5 billion years ago, they could not have drifted in space for such a vast length of time before landing in Antarctica recently, scientists said.
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The identity of the object that spawned the two meteorites may be elusive, but researchers have been able to draw up a basic profile. They know, for instance, that the parent body had “differentiated” – that is, had been reprocessed into a layered object, usually with a core, a mantle and a crust. Stony meteorites which have undergone this reprocessing are known as achondrites.

Technology and Fun in the Classroom

Bridging technology with fun

Mitch Lown and Dave Arndt teach technology education to students at Bangor High School and West Salem High School. A few of the courses they teach were once, years ago, called “shop class,” but the curriculum is far more advanced today. Not only are these not your father’s shop classes, they aren’t shop classes at all.

Computer programs, 3-D designs, architectural drawing, engineering, mass production and the design and marketing of products are only some of the areas local high school students are tackling in Lown and Arndt’s classes.
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In their manufacturing classes, both Lown and Arndt give students a feel for what it’s like to set up a business and produce and sell a product. And they do make a profit. Lown’s students, for example, built and sold mounting kits for deer antlers and made a profit on the venture. Arndt said he always stays conscious of the world that students will face after graduation.

“I address every class as if it’s a job,” he said. “We’re not here to waste time because that’s not the way it’s going to be when they get in the job market. The biggest challenge for me is changing the attitudes of some students and instilling a work ethic. If they say they are going to do something, they need to follow through on that.”

Secret Life of Microbes

New Window Opens on the Secret Life of Microbes: Scientists Develop First Microbial Profiles of Ecosystems

Nowhere is the principle of “strength in numbers” more apparent than in the collective power of microbes: despite their simplicity, these one-cell organisms–which number about 5 million trillion trillion strong (no, that is not a typo) on Earth–affect virtually every ecological process, from the decay of organic material to the production of oxygen.

But even though microbes essentially rule the Earth, scientists have never before been able to conduct comprehensive studies of microbes and their interactions with one another in their natural habitats.
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Because microbes are an ecosystem’s first-responders, by monitoring changes in an ecosystem’s microbial capabilities, scientists can detect ecological responses to stresses earlier than would otherwise be possible–even before such responses might be visibly apparent in plants or animals, Rohwer said.

Evidence that viruses–which are known to be ten times more abundant than even microbes–serve as gene banks for ecosystems. This evidence includes observations that viruses in the nine ecosystems carried large loads of DNA without using such DNA themselves. Rohwer believes that the viruses probably transfer such excess DNA to bacteria during infections, and thereby pass on “new genetic tricks” to their microbial hosts. The study also indicates that by transporting the DNA to new locations, viruses may serve as important agents in the evolution of microbes.

Grand Flood

Grand Canyon photo by John Hunter

Model analysis helps protect river’s ecosystem

The goal of the high-flow experiment, the third since 1996, is to see if such high flows can help reconstruct some of the canyon’s beaches and sand bars that are instrumental to ecological systems and native fishes that have suffered since the building of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963.
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By allowing flow of water that, at its peak, will be more than three times its normal rate (to a volume of 41,500 cubic feet per second), researchers hope to flush some of the dam system of its backed-up sediment and reconstruct habitat downstream. It is expected that the high water-flows will rebuild eroded beaches downstream of the dam by moving sand accumulated in the riverbed onto sandbars.

That in turn will allow the re-establishment of eddy sandbars that provide the slow moving, backwater channels vital for native fish species. The sand bars also provide camping areas for river runners and hikers, and the beaches provide sand to the canyon that helps preserve archaeological resources.

Dolphin Rescues Beached Whales

New Zealand dolphin rescues beached whales:

The pygmy sperm whales had repeatedly beached, and both they and the humans were tired and set to give up, he said. But then the dolphin appeared, communicated with the whales, and led them to safety.

The bottlenose dolphin, called Moko by local residents, is well known for playing with swimmers off Mahia beach on the east coast of the North Island.
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Mr Smith said he felt fortunate to have witnessed the extraordinary event, and was delighted for the whales, as in the past he has had to put down animals which have become beached. He said that the whales have not been seen since, but that the dolphin had returned to its usual practice of playing with swimmers in the bay.

“I shouldn’t do this I know, we are meant to remain scientific,” Mr Smith said, “but I actually went into the water with the dolphin and gave it a pat afterwards because she really did save the day.”

Dino-Era Feathers Found Encased in Amber

Seven dino-era feathers found perfectly preserved in amber in western France highlight a crucial stage in feather evolution, scientists report. The hundred-million-year-old plumage has features of both feather-like fibers found with some two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods and of modern bird feathers, the researchers said.
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The find provides a clear example “of the passage between primitive filamentous down and a modern feather,” said team member Didier NÃ©raudeau of the University of Rennes in France. The study team isn’t sure yet whether the feathers belonged to a dino or a bird. But fossil teeth from two dino families thought to have been feathered were excavated from rocks just above the layer that contained the amber, Perrichot said. “It is entirely plausible that the feathers come from a dinosaur rather than from a bird,” he said.

Easy File Sync Over the Internet

Dropbox aims to simplifying file backup, sync, and sharing for the world. Like other Y Combinator startups it is small and focused – 3 MIT computer science alums. Watch a web presentation that shows a very useful looking service. It is in private beta now – you can register to be notified when it is open for public launch.

Y Combinator: “We care more about how smart you are than how old you are, and more about the quality of your ideas than whether you have a formal business plan.” You have until April 2nd to apply for funding for the current cycle.