High Schoolers to the Rescue
Posted on June 21st, 2010 by ASEE
As the Navy’s main combat search-and-rescue gunship, the Sikorsky HH-60H Seahawk is a workhorse of a helicopter that’s been in service since the mid-1980s. That means it sometimes needs updating. Now, help for the new redesign is coming from an unexpected quarter — a San Antonio high school.
Filed under: K-12 Education News | Comments Off on High Schoolers to the Rescue
Tags: Design, Engineering Design, Reverse Engineering, STEM education, U.S. Navy
British Petroleum is using a series of dispersants to combat the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — chemicals intended to break up the surface tension of an oil slick and make oil more water-soluble. But the contents of some of these chemicals may be toxic to humans and wildlife, according to information newly released by the Environmental Protection Agency.
A growing number of cash-strapped U.S. school districts are opting for 4-day weeks to cope with tight budgets. Some districts say it’s that or laying off teachers. For some districts, the shorter week has proved a boon: test scores went up, as did student and teacher attendance.
Next year, American school districts will spend $16 billion on high-tech classroom devices, with one in three classrooms sporting an interactive whiteboard. But critics charge that whiteboards lock instructors into the classroom lecture, which despite the newfangled technology, remains an inefficient, non-interactive method of instruction.
The long-awaited set of national academic standards — The Common Core State Standards — was released this month, indicating which math and English skills students should master during their K-12 years. Written by the National Governors Association and the country’s state school chiefs, the voluntary standards are expected to be adopted by 40 states by year’s end. Yet some lawmakers protest that the standards are an unneeded federal intrusion into local schools.
Spurred by growing concerns that American students lack the skills to compete in a global economy, school districts nationwide are packing engineering lessons into already crowded schedules for even the youngest students, giving priority to a subject that was once left to after-school robotics clubs and summer camps, or else waited until college.
Educators say that the best way to get kids interested in engineering is to start teaching the basics at a very young age. That’s an axiom that engineering academics at Behrend College, part of the Pennsylvania State University System, have clearly taken to heart, according to the Erie Times News. They recently introduced a Play with Engineering program for 4- and 5-year-olds at the college’s Early Learning Center.
Three rivers run through Pittsburgh, so it is blessed with an abundance of potable water. But 3 billion people across the globe, nearly half the world’s population, don’t have ready access to fresh water. That was the lesson driven home to 550 high school students at a recent daylong tutorial sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh.
If you’re young, gifted, and male, will your talents be overlooked? In New York City, boys comprise 51 percent of the student population; but in the city’s gifted kindergarten classes, fifty-six percent of the students are female, the New York Times reports. While boys have long lagged behind girls in high school graduation rates and college enrollment, educators fear that this new finding may suggest that gender disparity starts at a very early age, according to the Times.
