White House Releases Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 Report

Last week, the White House released its Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 report. The report is produced every two years. According to the report, the state of U.S. science and engineering is still strong, but our nation’s global primacy in science and engineering has dropped significantly in the past few years. The result has something to do with the increasing capabilities among East Asian nations, especially China.

The report also reflects on elementary and secondary science and math education, the science and engineering labor force. The public attitudes and understanding about science and technology were also showed in the report.

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National Lab Day

For those who don’t know about National Lab Day, it is a nationwide movement to bring together stakeholders in communities of support where science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals work together to provide more science experiences to students. National Lab Day is not just one day but a week in May.  Teachers will get the opportunity to work with outside experts. You can simply go on NationalLabDay.org to enter the science project you are interested in teaching, N.L.D. will match teachers with volunteer scientists and engineers in their areas for mentoring. Teachers should become a part of National Lab Day!

This is a great chance for teachers to implement hands-on projects, mentor a student, or even to start a fund-raising to buy needed supplies.  National Lab Day will inspire numerous students.

Read Tom Friedman’s column on innovation and NLD

STANYS Annual Workshops and Dinner

Science Teachers Association of NY State (STANYS) Central Western Section is holding its annual workshops and dinner at Nazareth College on March 4, 2010. In total of 18 different sessions will be held in Smyth Hall and Galisano Academic Center on Nazareth campus. This will be a great opportunity for teachers to learn from the presentors who can share some valuable strategies and lesson plans to enhance students’ interest in learning.

For example, workshop “CSI Owl Pellets: An Integrated Science, Math, ELA, Art Unit” will offer a hands-on experience to dissect an owel pellet, reassemble the skeletal remains and identify the victim. This will be a fun way to teach students about food chain, food webs, predator, and so much more!!

There are 18 different workshops on various topics you get to pick! Don’t miss this great opportunity to collaborate and network with your colleagues! 

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Lemuel Patterson: Building Futures Throught Education

 

Elementary science teacher Lemuel Patterson has been using his Abbeville roots to inspire his students to become interested in science in South Carolina for decades. Now he is a science instructor in Columbia, the 57-year-old  Patterson was honored in late 2009 as the Mary McLeod Bethune Outstanding Teacher Award recipient by the National Alliance of Black School Educators. He is a teacher who used innovative teaching methods that have led to an increase in student achievement.

Patterson has influenced many of his students’ lives. One of his students April Coley, commented on her teacher Patterson as a teacher who made science fun for them, and now she is working as a clinical drug and alcohol counselor in Aiken and is working on a master’s degree. Coley still remembers that Patterson incorporated student science experiments with the school’s morning announcements. It became a privilege for youngsters to perform a particular morning’s demonstration. Everyone became excited about science experiments and they all wanted to become a part of it.

Patterson impacted and motivated students in different ways. Most importantly, many of his students became interested in science. Patterson has shown us that if we believe in our students, there are tons of different opportunities for success. He is also a role model for us to make learning fun and interesting for our children.

NSTA Web Seminars

Most teachers are busy and rarely have time for any professional development. However, the NSTA learning center is providing many different webinars on different topics in order to deepen the teaching and learning in the classroom. The uncpming webinars are “spark girls’ interest in engineering” and “Teaching Biotechnology: New Tools and Resources for the STEM Career Pipeline”. NSTA is joining force with “Engineer Your Life (EYL)”, a national campaign to showcase engineering as an exciting and rewarding career choice for high school girls. More than 75% of girls familiar with EYL indicated the site inspired them to take an engineering course in college. If teachers know more strategies in helping their students become more interested in a subject, the students’ future will become promising. Therefore, I believe that these are great opportunities for teachers to expand their horizon in teaching. All you need to do is turn on your computer and register online! You can sit comfortably at, and you will gain something valuable from listening to the professionals! Isn’t it wonderful?

Visit Website (Spark girls’ interest in engineering)

Visit Website (Teaching Biotechnology)

Be The Dinosaur

Be the Dinosaur: Life in the Cretaceous is coming to the Rochester Museum and Science center February 5, 2010 through May 4, 2010. Part of the exhibit includes a state-of-the-art Be the Dinosaur™ Simulator Pod where visitors can become a dinosaur exploring the environment and learning what food different dinosaurs ate, where they found it, and how they survived. Along the way, students will learn about their environment, the plants, animals and insects that share it, and the relationships among them in an accurate, hands-on interactive world.  Back in the dinosaur world, they will explore the mysteries and theories of dinosaur behavior, find and communicate with others in their herd, cooperate in defense, use their sense of smell to find food and other animals, and more. This highly interactive event gives a new venue to students to learn about the dinosaurs

The Kid’s Science Challenge!

Above is the Third grade Girl Scout Troop 52997, they won honors in two categories in the 2009 Kids’ Science Challenge!!

The Kids’ Challenge is a free nationwide competition for 3rd to 6th graders. Students are encouraged to come up with different questions to submit ideas or problems in the science field. Even though this is a free competition, the raised questions by students will be given the opportunity to collaborate with scientists to see their ideas come alive! This competition promotes critical thinking. It will provide students a different experience in learning scientific topics which could potentially spark students’ interest in Science. It is essential to increase students’ interest in science field at an early age. Therefore, it is highly recommended that teachers should encourage their students to enter this competition to have some fun!

This year’s science fields are:
Detective Science (forensics)
Bio-inspired Designs (biomimicry)
Imagining Sports on Mars (in cooperation with NASA/JPL)

The first thousand students to enter the competition receive free hands-on activity kits.  These kits include simulated Mars soil, fingerprint and density experiments. These are the

Our website features curricula alligned to national standards, downloadable activities, videos with scientists and engineers demonstrating our activities, games and a forum for kids to ask our KSC scientists questions directly.

This year’s science fields are:
Detective Science (forensics)
Bio-inspired Designs (biomimicry)
Imagining Sports on Mars (in cooperation with NASA/JPL)

Visit Website

Quality STEM Education Takes on New Importance

Laura J. Fuller, a guest columnist along with many experts believe that the Information Age is coming to an end and the next phase of economic dominance will be by industries in the areas of biology and biotechnology.

She stated that President Obama recently recognized this shift in his six priorities for the Race to the Top initiative focusing on improving K-12 schools. The second priority gives competitive preference specifically to science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM).

He said schools should “offer a rigorous course of study in mathematics, the sciences, technology and engineering,” and cooperate with industry experts to help teachers incorporate STEM content across grades and disciplines.” He also said that schools should try to prepare students for careers in the sciences.

Laura believes as educators, we have an even greater responsibility to prepare our students- specifically our female students– for their lives in this same world.

She stated that women were beginning to make inroads into the various science fields when she was in college, but she usually wound up being the only woman or one of a small minority among her science department. She felt that she wasn’t encouraged to further pursue studies or research compare to the men who were being supported in these areas.

Laura believes that as educators, we need to know that advanced math and science education is no longer only for the superintelligent, motivated students. A working knowledge of both is necessary for all of America’s children. 

It’s also parents’ responsibility to weave science into everyday experiences. They must educate themselves as their children progress through school in order to have these important conversations with them. 

We all must work together to meet the challenges of the future and to prepare our children to excel in this environment.

NYSERDA Energy Smart Workshops

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has created four new free workshops for teachers to help integrate energy education into their lesson plans and create energy smart students. These workshops are for K-12 Teachers, educators in not-for-profit agencies, pre-service educators, college professors, and other educational professionals. These workshops have been specialized base on grade level. The ABCs of Energy is aimed at grades K-3 and is a hands-on workshop that lays the groundwork for energy education. The 4 Es of Energy for grades 4-6 uses hands on activities to explore energy forms and sources. Focus on Solar is a workshop is specialized for 5-8 or 9-12 and teachers solar energy applications. Energy trilogy for grades 7-12 explores how economics, efficiency and environment relate to the energy challenges before us.

These workshops will be held in the finger lakes region. The first, Energy Trilogy, will be held on Jan. 28, 2010 at Genesee County Community College and again on April 28 at Monroe 2 BOCES. Monroe 2 BOCES will also host Focus on Solar for both grade levels on April 29, the ABCs of Energy and the 4 Es of Energy on April 30. More information about these workshops including location and registration information can be found Here at the NYSERDA website. The Workshop Flyer also gives a more in-depth look at the four workshops.

Understanding Elementary Teacher’s Use of Science Teaching TIme: Lessons From The Big Sky Science Partnership

The Big Sky Science Partnership (BSSP) serves grades K-8 science teachers in schools near three American Indian reservations in Montana. The BSSP is led by Salish Kootenai College, in partnership with Montana State University of Montana, and numerous school districts. The main idea of this project is to know how much time teachers in the Partnership had available to teach science, and how the time was distributed and used.

This project showed the first full year of professional development activities in the Partnership, 2007-2008, it was apparent that some teachers in the program allocated little time to science instruction. How could teachers who diligently attended science workshops and many of them joined master’s program reported having very limited tijme for science instruction? Speculation abounded, and the issues such as the imbalance that has increased since the federal No Child Left Behind legislation took effect in 2002, lack of resources to teach science in certain Partnership schools has affected teachers’ level of preparation and confidence to teach science.

This project reflects on the key influences on teachers’ decisions regarding science teaching time.

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