Report: Improving STEM Education
Posted on April 30th, 2015 by Mary Lord
Want to improve the quality of STEM education? AdvancED devotes its entire Spring 2015 issue to the subject. Articles range from narrowing the STEM achievement gap to 3-D virtual learning to explicitly teaching engineering.
Filed under: K-12 Education News, K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features | Comments Off on Report: Improving STEM Education
Tags: achievement gap, AdvancED, Curriculum, Education Policy, Environmental science, Green, Internet Resources, Research on Learning, STEM education
Teams of students in grades 5 to 7 locate a contaminant spill in a hypothetical site by measuring the pH of soil samples. They then predict the direction of groundwater flow using mathematical modeling and use the engineering design process to come up with alternative treatments for the contaminated water.
Plant a tree. Snap a selfie for NASA. There are countless ways students and teachers can celebrate the 45th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22. This year’s theme: It’s Our Turn to Lead. See how your small steps can lead to big change!
America’s “green economy” is growing, and that means new jobs in sustainability, construction, engineering and many other areas. To help students discover their interests and career pathways, Green360 offers self-assessment inventories, career coaching, and other free online curricular resources. 
Middle school students learn about the engineering design process by building a model of an innovative human shelter inspired and informed by an animal habitat. They then present their work, explaining what attribute of the animal structure influenced their design. 
Explore dead zones and learn about threats to undersea habitats in an engaging, video-rich education program from Earth Echo International designed to empower youth to help protect “our water planet.”
In this activity, students in grades 9-11 learn how engineers harness the energy of the wind by following the engineering design process to create and test two prototype wind turbines to see which works best. They also learn about where to place a wind turbine for maximum effectiveness, and to weigh the advantages and disadvantages compared with other energy sources.
Upload inspiring photos that show how you and your school are engaging students in environmental education by May 31 and maybe win a prize in the 2013 National Environmental Education Week Photo Contest. 
Breathtakingly vast, Greenland’s ancient ice sheet turns out to be as fragile as it is formidable. Environmental photographer and Extreme Ice Survey founder James Balog has spent the past five years documenting the impact of Earth’s big thaw on glaciers there and in Iceland, Nepal, Alaska, and the U.S. Rocky Mountains in a stunning new book, Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers. 
