I enjoyed watching auto races as a child, so I decided to check out Norm Barstow’s session, Elastic Power: Wind Up Your Engines and Explore (a.k.a. “NASCAR in New Orleans”).

Preparing for the big race

Barstow had elementary and middle school teachers use an elastic-powered wooden car to explore energy transfer and force and motion.

Check out Barstow’s “lab coat”: No boring science lessons for his students!

Start your engines…

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I interviewed Barbara Park about her experiences in this session.

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Demonstrating the carbon cycle was never so much fun as it was in Kristen Dotti’s New Orleans session, Drop the Lecture and Let the Students Pick Up the Learning in Environmental Science. Dotti, who teaches Advanced Placement high school students at Christ School in Arden, North Carolina, had teachers use brightly colored plastic balls to create models of CO₂ and other chemical compounds. Next, they had to choose which organism they were going to be and act out how the organism would behave in photosynthesis or cell respiration. Around the room, you could hear excited teachers exclaiming, “I’m a coral! I’m a deer!”

That was fine with Dotti. “You should be talking. It should be loud in here,” she declared.

I took a few videos to let you in on the fun. In the first one, a group of teachers are creating their models.

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This group is demonstrating mineralization.

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Now the “dramatization” begins!

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This year, K–5 teachers from the Baltimore City (Maryland) Public Schools went from thinking they couldn’t teach STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and their students couldn’t learn it to expressing confidence in their skills and in their students’ abilities. This sea change resulted from an Elementary STEM Teacher Clinic held by STEM Master Teachers for teachers from struggling elementary schools with many high-poverty students and a predominantly African American population. The clinic provided 130 teachers from 22 schools with hands-on professional development during the summer and also with equipment, supplies, and books from the NSTA Picture-Perfect Science Lessons book collection, which contains standards-based science content and ready-to-teach lessons.

This morning in New Orleans, as part of the Urban Science Education Leadership (USEL) session, presenters from Baltimore City Public Schools described the clinic and how it transformed the teachers. One key to its success was “every teacher had a coach…having that coach is the most critical component,” said presenter Katya Denisova. When the teachers returned to school in the fall, they had the coach available in their school to help them operate software and equipment and answer their questions. Most of these teachers “had not been exposed to teaching rigorous STEM,” she pointed out. By the end of the clinic, however, their self-assessments showed they greatly increased their knowledge of and skills in scientific inquiry.

Presenter Linda Evans declared, “How great is it to see the kids actually touching things and doing things [in class]!” She said the curriculum was based on Common Core state standards, “infusing literature and using [Picture-Perfect Science Lessons] as the anchor” to “push in STEM, touch on all those content areas.”

Adren Kornegay of Baltimore’s Garrett Heights Elementary Middle School said the curriculum “hit all four of the types of science,” and engaged students as young as kindergarteners in engineering design challenges. Kindergarteners developed a recycling program; second graders designed habitats for hermit crabs and worms; fifth graders created wind turbines. Terrell Davis of Montebello Elementary Junior Academy said even the fifth graders enjoyed the curriculum’s picture books, which helped them “relate to the [STEM] concepts.”

Then the presenters gave the attendees some supplies and turned them loose to explore a motion-and-force activity related to the book Sheep in a Jeep. Groups of three teachers created ramps and rolled a tiny plastic sheep in a plastic jeep down them, then measured how far the sheep traveled. Just as their students would do, they varied the heights and lengths of the ramps and tried using sandpaper to see how it would affect the jeep’s motion. This “inquiry allows students to think for themselves,” observed presenter Evelyn Tolliver. Her students “connected all the ramps and were rolling cars across the classroom,” she said, smiling.

Denisova mentioned that the attendees and other K–5 teachers around the country could take advantage of the clinic’s curriculum, even though they won’t be in the next cohort. “We want you to be STEM advocates,” said Evans. “A lot of our elementary teachers are not comfortable with the content…They really do need support.”

The audience for Colonel Geoffrey Ling’s presentation had a treat yesterday. Ling, who is program manager for the Defense Science Office at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), said that this conference was “the first national meeting” in which an “amazing breakthrough” would be announced. That breakthrough is a prosthetic arm that a person can control using his or her own brain—a miracle for our troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and for others with injuries or disabilities.

Ling said DARPA was founded in the 1950s in response to Sputnik and was “set free” to work on “high-risk, high-payoff projects.” He asked teachers to share some great ideas for future science innovations, and each one they called out—such as teleportation and flying cars—may someday be possible, according to Ling, because of the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) that creates an “enabling technology. The enabling technology starts the process.”

He pointed out that many young children don’t know the meaning of “it can’t be done–in their own minds, it can be done.” Only when they grow up do they become “jaded” and closed to the possibilities. Ling says teachers need to be mindful of this and find ways to get students to expand their imaginations. “The brain is very adaptable..That’s like what teachers do [help young brains adapt].”

He also stressed the importance of student teamwork: “Always start with teams. It’s always a team [of scientists and engineers that create these innovations].” He said more than 200 scientists, engineers, physical therapists, and other experts worked on the prosthetic arm, “all inspired by [the] teachers” who taught them STEM.

Ling walked us through all of the steps taken to develop the prosthetic arm. Much of the work was accomplished using monkeys and studying their movements. The monkeys even assisted during the testing of the “remote control” of the arm. They learned how to control it by thinking about what they wanted it to do: Get it to grasp a food treat, then bring the treat to their mouths. Ling forsees that “30 years from now,” humans will drive a car by using their brains to control it. He also predicts “visual prosthetics are around the corner,” and artificial exoskeletons will enable elderly persons to regain movement. ”Grandma can ski again!,” he exclaimed.

During the Q&A portion that followed, educators asked Ling about other possible STEM innovations. For each one, Ling assured them it could be done—and DARPA was working on it. The audience’s amazement and delight was palpable.

To see videos of some of the amazing work of DARPA and its partners, go to

• www.jhuapl.edu
• www.darpa.mil

I talked to one enthusiastic attendee about what he appreciated about Ling’s talk.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stephen Pruitt, vice president for content, research, and development for Achieve, Inc., gave teachers an engaging preview of the Next Generation Science Standards during his talk this afternoon. “We have incredible teachers in this country…that’s the reason [the NGSS] will go forward,” he maintains. He also emphasized that the NGSS are “for all students” because all students are “born investigators,” and noted that some Nobel prize winners are working on the committee to develop the new standards.

The new standards will emphasize that understanding builds over time, and they “don’t stop at just memorizing details,” but will require students to understand “the evidence of how something works,” such as cell division. He referred to the NGSS as “inquiry unpacked,” a term he said he’s not crazy about but admits is important because not all educators have a cohesive understanding of what inquiry is.

The NGSS will reflect that “math is part of the language of science” and will indicate to teachers ”here’s where math is appropriate,” Pruitt explained. Cross-cutting concepts are key in the NGSS because “shouldn’t energy be the same regardless of which class you’re sitting in?”

He suggests teachers think about the NGSS outside of their classroom and school and “come together for what will be good for the students, not what will be good for me…I’m going to ask that you have an open mind.” He reminded everyone, “When was the last time that we got better by doing less?” He urged teachers to read the framework, if they haven’t yet done so, because the framework serves as a preview to what will be in the new standards.

When teachers in the audience expressed concerns about how the NGSS will be implemented in their states, Pruitt responded, “Make sure people are informed about this and build a base…You can lead from your classroom just like any policy leader can.”

Here’s what Terri Jones of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, had to say about this session.

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NSTA Executive Director Francis Eberle

The pressure has been intense on increasing STEM literacy for K–12 students. What this actually means is not entirely clear since for many STEM literacy is not well defined. When we speak about STEM literacy, does it include all students, or just for some students?  And what part of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics are we talking about when we use the “STEM” acronym?

Recently released National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores for mathematics show improved student performance in this subject. This is good news, although we still have a long way to go before we can claim that all students are math literate. We don’t know about student literacy in the other areas however—the S, T, or E.  Science is not nationally assessed by NAEP assessments at the same frequency as mathematics. There is no current NAEP assessment for engineering or technology (although it is coming in 2014) and there is a framework available that indicates which topical areas will be assessed.

Research also tells us that there is a clear link between early student motivation, and student persistence in pursuing K–12 STEM subjects and STEM fields once they leave secondary school and enter college and beyond. There has been an increase in students’ interest in pursuing STEM fields at the secondary level.  Many students are making career decisions before getting to college. A recent national Harris Interactive survey of college students reports that 78% made the decision to study STEM fields in high school and about 21% decided to pursue STEM while they were in middle school.  The survey also points out that student motivation to pursue STEM studies in college largely came from a teacher and/or a class. Students decide to pursue a STEM career because of a good salary, a positive job potential, and a degree program would be intellectually stimulating and challenging. We should give students credit for being perceptive and paying attention to larger trends. And congratulations to all the K–12 teachers who are working to increase the number of students who are interested in pursuing STEM careers.

Yet this is only part of the story. The prognosis is not good for students who go on to pursue a STEM degree—roughly 40 percent of students who plan an engineering and science major in college end up changing their major once they start taking STEM classes. This percentage is even higher for the best students–60% of premed students with strong SAT scores (and quite likely) a quality high school preparation also change their degree to a non-STEM degree.  This is twice the combined attrition rate for all other majors. Something is definitely going on here.  A New York Times article Why Science Majors Change Their Minds reports that the culture of weeding out students is alive and well in our nation’s universities. High schools have made some improvements increasing students’ interest, but it turns out that those students are being discouraged at the university level. There are bright spots for retention of STEM students: Engineering programs at MIT, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Villanova University allow freshman to do projects in engineering. Some of those classes are not even graded. They are focused on problem solving and helping students think out of the box. These programs still require students to take the rigorous calculus and chemistry courses, but they hook them with opportunities for research, design and service projects. Worcester Polytechnic has 74% of students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years and 80% in six years. This is engaged learning. We know that this works at the secondary level as well.

The pipeline and STEM literacy does not end at the high school. What do you think—how we can keep more students engaged in STEM both in high school and especially when they get to college?

photo by cliff1066™ on Flickr

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning,” said Albert Einstein. Many educators would agree that learning about the science of yesterday through lessons integrating history and science benefits today’s students (who could be tomorrow’s scientists).

“What we know now and how we do science now is rooted in the past,” says one of the teachers interviewed in this NSTA Reports story. She invites her students “to objectively explore the historical events that led scientists to revise their ideas.”

Read the article to find out how teachers around the country are providing their students with a historical perspective on science–and tell us what you’re doing in your classroom.

photo courtesy of the Franklin Institute

Teachers and students are heading to science museums around the country to learn about weather events such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and tornadoes. In the photo, for example, these young visitors to Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute are using a shake table to learn about earthquakes and their effects on various structures.

Besides educating students about severe weather, these exhibits offer a look at weather forecasting and the instruments forecasters use, as described in a recent NSTA Reports story. If your school isn’t located near a science museum, not to worry: Many exhibits have online components, such as videos your students can watch.

Have you taken your students to a science museum to explore the weather? Tell us how your trip went and what they learned.