Tuesday, August 30, 2011

US News and World Report Starts STEM Ed Resource Center

US News's STEM Education resource center will have their latest news, opinions and thoughts about science, technology, engineering and math education." The STEM center will provide "viewpoints from top experts in the field, rankings of top STEM schools, and stories about programs and people that are making a difference."

Friday, August 19, 2011

NSTA Freebies Resource

In case you have not seen this, here's an NSTA page is an amazing collection of cool resources for Science Teachers:

http://www.nsta.org/publications/freebies.aspx

Making Learning Games that Don't Suck

Palo Alto-based education game maker Airy Labs has raised $1.5 million from Foundation Capital, Google Ventures, and Playdom co-founder Rick Thompson.

The funding comes after a $100,000 fellowship grant to Airy’s founder, Andrew Hsu, from Peter Thiel’s much-publicized and politicized “20 under 20″ grant program, in which the PayPal co-founder paid 20 young entrepreneurs to leave or forgo college in favor of starting companies.

The announcement also makes Hsu the first alum of Thiel’s program to get a business idea venture funded.

Airy’s mission, according to Hsu, is to “make games that parents can feel good about handing to their kids … and that don’t suck.”

The games, which will initially teach English, math and memory building, will be targeted at the 5 to 13 age range, which is coincidentally about the same age Hsu was when he started studying neuroscience at the University of Washington.

It’s somewhat ironic that the first funded Thiel fellow has spent almost half his life in college.

While Hsu said that Thiel’s cash was “nice to have,” he said he knew he’d have to raise a lot more to build out his vision for cross-platform learning games.

Hsu said Airy’s first products would be offered initially on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform, with the hope that the games will evolve “into a larger platform where social learning can take place.”

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

New Framework for K-12 Science Education

A report released today by the National Research Council presents a new framework for K-12 science education that identifies the key scientific ideas and practices all students should learn by the end of high school. The framework will serve as the foundation for new K-12 science education standards, to replace those issued more than a decade ago. The National Research Council is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering; all three are independent, nongovernmental organizations.

Read the report online at the National Academies Press.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

All-girls St. Paul Public Middle School targets STEM

The Laura Jeffrey Academy, Minnesota's first all-girl charter school, held graduation ceremonies for its first ever class of 8th graders.

The charter school, which teaches fifth through eighth grades, attempts to build the confidence of girls and push their interests in science, technology, engineering, arts and math through a year-round project-based model.

Since it opened in 2008, the St. Paul charter school has doubled in size from its original enrollment of 100 students.

The academy started with fifth-graders and added on a grade each year.

Laura Jeffrey, the school's namesake, died in 2003. She was one of the first African-American female students at Macalester College. She graduated with honors and became one of the first African-American librarians in the St. Paul library system.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Discovery Education Techbooks for STEM

Eight Rapides Parish schools are replacing their science textbooks with "techbooks" -- digital books created by Discovery Channel that offer interactive lessons, videos and hands-on projects, and are accessible to students anytime, anywhere online.
"Some of us are using our textbook money" to purchase access to the techbook, said Fred Moore, principal of Julius Patrick Elementary School (Louisiana).

Visit Discover Education and explore their 'techbook'.