Since “the world’s first cooking robot” appeared in China four years ago, roboticists around the world have devised a veritable army of new robots designed to serve and cook food. Although they’re too expensive for most eateries to adopt, they provide great entertainment and get people comfortable with the machines.

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Tags: Robotics

A recent survey of women and underrepresented minorities who hold STEM degrees found that many of them were discouraged from seeking their careers. But, what was, perhaps, eyebrow-raising was that most of those affected said the discouragement came from college professors.

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Tags: African-American engineers, African-American Students, Hispanic Students, Latino Students, Minority Group Engineers, Research, Research on Learning, Women in Engineering, Women in Science

Around half of all high school graduates who enroll in college don’t finish, and a recent poll of employers found that 40 percent of the new grads they hire don’t have the skills necessary to advance in their jobs. But experts agree that, so far, there is no good way to measure how college- and career-ready students are; hence the White House making $350 million available to states to develop new assessments.

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Tags: Career Planning, College, Education Policy, Public Policy, Research, Research on Learning

The Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning at Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education has partnered with PBS’s TeacherLine, a web-based professional development program, to educate elementary school teachers on how to teach engineering concepts to their young charges.

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Tags: PBS, PBS programs, Programs for Teachers, Resources for Teachers, Teacher Resources

Do American schoolkids need to spend more time at school? Yes, argues Charles E. Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of education. Chinese students spend 41 more days a year in school than does the average American, but change is reaching our shores.

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Tags: Articles, Education Policy, Public Policy, Research on Learning

American girls have closed the mathematics gender gap. That’s the finding of a new study by the Center on Education Policy, which has been tracking gender differences among U.S. students in math and reading since 2002. While girls have traditionally trailed boys when it comes to math skills, particularly at the elementary school level, the study finds that boys and girls are now roughly equally proficient at math at all three levels: elementary, middle school and high school.

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Tags: Girls Education, Math, Mathematics, Research on Learning

Robert Goodman, a science teacher at Bergen County Technical School in Paramus, N.J, always felt that teaching 9th graders biology, but not chemistry and physics, was the wrong approach. So, he devised a curriculum for teaching physics that conformed with 9th graders’ math knowledge. His method is now being piloted in 21 schools.

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Tags: Curriculum, Education Policy, Physics

PepsiCo, the second-largest soda pop maker in the world—has agreed to refrain from selling its sugary products in schools, removing full-calorie, sweetened drinks from primary and secondary schools in 200 countries by 2012.

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Tags: Childhood Obesity, Corporations, Public Policy

Congress is gearing up to reauthorize Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which channels funding to K-12 education and which was last reauthorized during the Bush Administration, when it was re-dubbed No Child Left Behind (NCLB). President Obama’s version, unveiled last week, would greatly overhaul NCLB.

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Tags: Education Policy, Public Policy