Engineering Lights a Spark
Posted on December 12th, 2010 by ASEE
Clearly, Abby Ardis is an exceptional student. Still, the path taken by this senior at Snow Hill High School in Salisbury, Md. shows where an early interest in engineering and science can lead: internships at a NASA research facility and attendance at a bio-engineering conference.
Filed under: K-12 Education News | Comments Off on Engineering Lights a Spark
Tags: Biomolecular Engineering, Chemistry, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, NASA, Programs for Students
The PhET project, which creates online STEM-based simulations for free use, has received new grants totaling in $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation and the Dallas-based O’Donnell Foundation. These grants will allow the University of Colorado at Boulder project to expand to a key area of need: middle school science.
High School biology students in Valders, Wis. are raising zebra fish as part of a research project being conducted by students at the University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc. Or at least they’re trying. But the grant-funded project, intended to interest high schoolers in STEM, has encountered a problem: dying fish. 
Researchers have found a “surprisingly strong” relationship between imposition of Daylight Saving and students’ SAT scores. Students in Indiana counties that changed their clocks had scores that were 16.34 percent lower than those in counties that didn’t. 
The school-reform enthusiasm that saw states compete for federal Race to the Top funding and change the way teachers are evaluated seems to have cooled. Anticipating cuts in state funding, school officials across the country are bracing for a pushback against reforms, including efforts to bolster STEM programs. 
Seventh-grade technology education students in Hampton, Va., are learning to create clay animation videos using a webcam, software and clay. They research, design and create a five- to 10-minute episode for a hypothetical TV show, creating a storyboard, script, animated characters and digital imagery. “They’re only limited by their imagination,” says teacher Terry Beddow.
Even as more schools adopt new technology to boost student learning, researchers are voicing concern about what the stream of stimuli from computers and cellphones is doing to young brains. “The worry is we’re raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently.” 
Educators who try to fix the achievement gap afflicting young black males by focusing on their shortcomings have it backwards, argues Yvette Jackson, chief executive officer of the National Urban Alliance. “We must embrace a new approach to African-American males that focuses less on what they aren’t doing and builds on what they can and want to do as the path to improving their academic performance.”
Twenty one Chicago schools are trying out a digital science program from Discovery Education, hoping to raise low levels of science readiness. “We’re trying to connect with students where they’re at,” said John Loehr, Chicago Public Schools’ science director. “It’s an environment they can respond to, and then we can give them the resources to expand and keep learning.”
