Jaye Richards is a biology teacher at Cathkin High School in the Glasgow suburb of Cambuslang. When she teaches the effects of pollution on rivers and seas, she asks her 14- and 15-year-old students to look far beyond Scotland to the River Don in Sheffield, England, the Yangtze River in China, and the Gulf of Mexico. She doesn't just turn them loose on the Internet, however. Instead, she taps into Glow, Scotland's national intranet for schools.
Kroto, who retired from the University of Sussex in the U.K. and moved in 2004 to Florida State University in Tallahassee to focus on science education, believes that it's possible to produce high-quality materials without following NSDL's protocol of first putting everything under a disciplinary microscope. Instead, he argues that the best materials often come from "people who are passionate about what they are doing and want to share it. I'm committed to the ideals of the Dead Poets Society--you know, the charismatic teacher being the vehicle to excite students." That principle, he adds, is why Wikipedia has become so much more popular than Encyclopedia Britannica.
Toward that end, he's built a studio on campus that films presentations from fellow scientists. The materials are then posted on a site called GEOSET (Global Education Outreach for Science Engineering and Technology). The process is idiosyncratic--"if I hear about a good presentation on a particular topic, I ask the person to come by," he explains--and runs on a tiny budget drawn mostly from university start-up funds. "I generally like to show people what I can do before I ask them for money," Kroto says. "It was the same for my research on C60."
For success in an increasingly complex, crowded, and dangerous world, A nation must strive to be a meritocracy: Its education and social systems should be structured to select those with the most talent, energy, wisdom, and character as the next generation of leaders for each segment of society. When I was young, I was taught that providing equal opportunities for everyone was a matter of social justice--part of the social contract in the United States. Now, I believe that it is also a matter of national survival. Any country that fails to encourage and develop the talent in each individual through its public school system will suffer greatly, because the quality of a nation depends on the collective wisdom of both its leaders and its citizens.
The focus of the report is on the performance of U.S. students relative to their peers in other countries in 2007, and on changes in mathematics and science achievement since 1995.
At an ice-cream booth, Patrick Buckley dished out ice cream to attendees of Maker Faire, a do-it-yourself festival held earlier this month in Austin, Texas. With flavors such as frozen mint cucumber lime and BBQ honey, the treats were far from traditional. Nor were they handchurned the old-fashioned way, with the required hour-long wait before serving.
This is an article that examines the militaries use of advanced simulations,
and how educators benefit from access to this knowledge, as it is initially
being discovered (as opposed to well after the fact).
It's a puzzle game for the Mac, Wii and PC where you build structures that behave differently depending on weather, the properties of the materials used, and the different forces that act on them. These are the dry topics covered in my (hated) high school physics class, but are presented here in an inituitive and scaffolded way... in a bizarre Tim Burton-esque universe.
ChirpTracker is a new product that will integrate birdwatching and science with social networking.
RSS for Tags: science
The focus of the report is on the performance of U.S. students relative to their peers in other countries in 2007, and on changes in mathematics and science achievement since 1995.
A list/guide to great sites for kids- including educational sites!
At an ice-cream booth, Patrick Buckley dished out ice cream to attendees of Maker Faire, a do-it-yourself festival held earlier this month in Austin, Texas. With flavors such as frozen mint cucumber lime and BBQ honey, the treats were far from traditional. Nor were they handchurned the old-fashioned way, with the required hour-long wait before serving.
This is an article that examines the militaries use of advanced simulations, and how educators benefit from access to this knowledge, as it is initially being discovered (as opposed to well after the fact).
Interesting virtual field trips...
ChirpTracker is a new product that will integrate birdwatching and science with social networking.
discuss this
email this
