Science Education
grrlscientist | October 8, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
Already, dear readers, you are making a difference. For example, today, a classroom in Connecticut learned that they will be able to study anatomy because you donated enough for them to fulfill their funding request. Thank you!
Of course, I will be sharing all updates with you that they send during the upcoming school year.
Dear GrrlScientist,
Thank you so much for your generosity. You cannot imagine how thrilled the sixth graders will be to get such a…
sporte | October 8, 2008Over the years, I've seen many biotechnology education programs at community colleges embrace outreach to high schools as part of their mission. This kind of enthusiasm for outreach seems unique to biotech. No other kind of science or engineering program seems to do this sort of thing, at least not on the nationwide basis that I've seen demonstrated in biotechnology.
And yet, even though I've always admired and often participated in these efforts, some aspects are a little puzzling.
How do the colleges reconcile the energy spent in outreach efforts with the energy spent towards educating…
clock | October 8, 2008My DonorsChoose board includes challenges like this one, for example: Animal Life Cycles Up-Close:
Change you can believe in! That seems to be the motto these days. I want to teach my 2nd grade students about real change... animal life cycles.
My goal is to provide students with hands-on opportunities for observation and discovery. Students will compare and contrast various life cycles, recording changes in their learning logs.
I teach at a magnet school which has a strong Spanish emphasis. Our 2nd grade team shares most science materials so over 100 students will benefit from your…
clock | October 7, 2008My DonorsChoose board includes challenges like this one, for example: Smile....We love science!:
I teach special need students in an Inclusion Kindergarten setting in North Carolina. Our school is a Title One campus and we serve many low income families.
I would like to increase and enhance my student's knowledge of science. The Simple Science Exploration tubs will include 4 fun, hands on experiments with simple picture direction as the student's work independently. Having these tubs will provide the student's with engaging hands on activities. Currently, I have a limited amount of material…
gregladen | October 7, 2008The Science Museum of Minnesota recently developed an exhibit called "Race: Are we so different?" This exhibit is now at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and will be in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kalamazoo, Boston and Washington DC between now and June 2011.
If you get a chance, go see it.
In the meantime, a review of this exhibit has just been published in the current issue of Museum Anthropology, authored by Mischa Penn, Gil Tostevin, and yours truly, Greg Laden.
As one of the authors, it is obvious to me that this paper is brilliant! But I…
sciencewoman | October 7, 2008We got off to a strong start in the Sciencewomen Reader Challenge 2008. In the first 48 hours, we attracted 9 donors who gave a total of almost $400 to our DonorsChoose projects that fund impoverished public school science classrooms. And then we plateaued and our ticker hasn't budged a milimeter in the last few days.
Maybe you gave to other DonorsChoose challenges or maybe you thought you'd do it later. But we'd love to see you give a little bit of money to help out our handpicked projects, too. So in order to provide a little extra incentive, Alice, I and the good folks at Yellow Ibis have…
clock | October 6, 2008Jennifer Ouelette and Julianne Dalcanton chat about space, physics and science education:
Science Saturday: Our Humongous Sky:
Julianne lays claim to a comet (14:18)
The scientific sensibility infiltrates television (05:03)
Woes and wonders of the Hubble Space Telescope (08:38)
How astronauts prepare to go into space (09:00)
Jennifer defends corpse museums (04:15)
The right way to teach science to kids (04:12)
clock | October 6, 2008
Today, instead of introducing people, I will introduce a session, or two or three.
Feedback from participants of the last two conferences indicated a lot of interest in sessions relevant to science educators at all levels. At both the 1st and the 2nd conference, we had one session on using blogs in the classroom. But this time, we want to heed the calls and provide, if possible, three such sessions, each targeting a somewhat different audience.
So, if you go to the conference wiki and check the Program page, you will see the following three sessions listed there:
Online science for the…
clock | October 6, 2008My DonorsChoose board includes challenges like this one, for example: Science Trip For Our Amazing Urban Students:
The he students deserve this. I teach 5th grade at an urban, diverse, 86% free & reduced lunch school. Our school is 55% latino population, many who do not speak English and many who were born in another country. Our school has about 12 different languages spoken throughout it. Our students come from families that are very limited financially and we want to offer them an opportunity to go on a trip that will change their lives. This trip is a once in a life time trip for…
clock | October 5, 2008My DonorsChoose board includes challenges like this one, for example: Media Literacy in Science:
I am a high school science teacher in North Carolina who wishes to move his students into the 21st century with the skills necessary to become lifelong learners in the global environment.
All too often information presented in textbooks can be less than exciting to students and can even be out dated by the time the textbooks reach the students hands. The articles presented in Current Science are more in the style of those published in popular magazines and newspapers with the student audience in…
sporte | October 4, 2008Long Branch, NJ, is a lovely town on the Atlantic Ocean, with long beaches and brand new shops and condos. It is also part of an area in, central New Jersey, where biotechnology education is entering an exciting time thanks to efforts of NJBEC, Bio-1, and a WIRED grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.
NJBEC, Bio-1, WIRED? What do all these acronyms mean?
I get these things confused all the time, so I'll take a quick moment and explain.
NJBEC is the New Jersey Biotechnology Educators Consortium. Bio-1 is a partnership between five counties and several schools in central New Jersey, that…
clock | October 3, 2008From Sigma Xi:
Greetings everyone. We meet again at noon on Wednesday, Oct. 15 in RTP to hear NCSU associate professor James Bonner discuss "Emerging Nanotechnology: A New Risk Factor for Lung Diseases?" As you know, the commercial use of nanomaterials has outpaced scientific assessments of any potential health or environmental risks. Jamie Bonner is one of the scientists working to catch up.
Sigma Xi's Pizza Lunch speaker series is free and open to science journalists and science communicators of all stripes (free to forward this message to anyone you would like to be included). RSVPs are…
grrlscientist | October 3, 2008tags: DonorsChoose2008, education, public school education, fund raising, evolution education, nature education, bird education
Already, dear readers, you are making a difference. For example, today, a classroom in North Carolina learned that they will be able to study a variety of microscopic life using prepared slides that you purchased for them. Thank you!
Of course, I will be sharing all updates with you that they send during the upcoming school year.
Dear Grrlscientist,
"More Than Meets the Eye," funded in your honor by ANONYMOUS, is now becoming a reality for the students of Mrs. M…
clock | October 3, 2008Wow! Six of my DonorsChoose projects - Science Laboratory Kits, Who Gives A Hoot!, No More Worksheets!, Vroom! Vroom! Forces and Motion, What's the weather for today? and Math Mania have now been fully funded!
Unfortunately, not by my readers.... (pout)
If this keeps happening I'll add some more projects. All for science/math teaching projects in schools in low-income areas of North Carolina.
Your turn...
terrasig | October 2, 2008I am completely crushed, hammered, and otherwise incapacitated at work right now - apologies to readers who are looking for some natural products and pharmacology wisdom. It is in my brain but just not making it into pixels right now.
In the meantime, I did want to let readers know that we are participating for our 3rd year in the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge here at ScienceBlogs. More later on the program and my interests, past experiences, etc.
In the meantime, you can check out some of the projects about which I am passionate at:
Terra Sigillata's "More Abel To Do Science" Blogger…
clock | October 2, 2008SCONC
Saturday, Oct. 11
All Day
SCOPE academy at NC State
NC State's College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences is again offering their one-day "SCOPE academy" and inviting you to "indulge your curiosity and explore today's exciting frontiers of science. " The keynote is mathematician Donald Saari looking at the craziness of voting. Registration required.
http://www.pams.ncsu.edu/weekend/
clock | October 1, 2008You may have noticed, all around Scienceblogs.com, that we have started our traditional annual fundraiser - helping fund science and math projects in schools around the country, mainly focusing on schools in low-income areas where most of the students get free lunches and there is not much support for "extras" which should be normal part of every school - the basic supplies for math and science instruction.
I am right now having a technical problem with my side-bar widget, which I will install as soon as I can. But in the meantime, check out the Scienceblogs.com leaderboard, and pick some of…
scientificactivist | October 1, 2008For the month of October--and for the third year in a row--ScienceBlogs will be teaming up with the DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge to raise money for worthy classroom projects. This year, they've added a nifty blog widget, which I've posted at the top of my left sidebar. So, if you're in a generous mood, you can donate directly from my widget, or you can visit my challenge here. DonorsChoose is a website where potential donors can browse through project proposals written by teachers from all across the US, and this year I've personally picked out ten projects that I would like to see…
sporte | October 1, 2008ScienceBlogs and science bloggers, in general, have enthusiastically supported fund-raising efforts by DonorsChoose for the past two years, and we're doing it once again for 2008.
DonorsChoose works like this: teachers write descriptions of what they want and how they'll use it for teaching, and submit their proposals to DonorsChoose. We pick the projects we like and if you like them, too, you can help get these projects funded.
Donate to schools! Win a prize!
Last time I did this, we ended up funding three cool projects in biotechnology education. Students in Mrs. G's classroom in South…
skookumchick | October 1, 2008For the last two Octobers, Janet of Scienceblogs' Adventures in Ethics and Science has organized Sciencebloggers into participating in the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. We're doing it again this October, yay!
DonorsChoose collects requests for materials, supplies, equipment, money for field trips and so on from public school teachers who are trying to do great things for their students, and then faciliates matching them to people who want to help. ScienceWoman and I have chosen some projects we think would be great to fund, for kids who really need it.
And while we realize that the…