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Tag: stem

  • STEM Education for the 21st Century

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    Author Bio: Megan Gallagher works with CK-12 Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to K-12 STEM education materials to students worldwide. The CK-12 Foundation offers a range of customizable resources for students and educators. Learn more about what CK-12 is offering at http://www.ck12.org/about/whats-new/.

    It’s no secret that the United States is falling behind when it comes to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. Our high demand for skilled scientists and engineers has created a wealth of lucrative career opportunities for those entering STEM-related fields. In fact, science and engineering careers are growing at close to twice the rate of the overall workforce. The problem is that our students simply aren’t interested. Nearly 60 percent of students who begin high school with an interest in pursuing STEM-related fields of study end up changing their minds by the time graduation rolls around.

    The implications of this STEM crisis are startling, so much so that President Obama has made it his administration’s goal to move the U.S. back to the top of the pack in science and math within the next decade.

    The President had this to say at the Fifth annual White House Science Fair earlier this year: “[Science] is more than a school subject, or the periodic table, or the properties of waves. It is an approach to the world, a critical way to understand and explore and engage with the world, and then have the capacity to change that world…”

    Indeed it seems that primary STEM learning has become disconnected from the vibrant living, breathing practice of real world science and engineering. Which is why organizations like the CK-12 Foundation have made it their mission to bridge that important gap by making STEM education more attractive, accessible and engaging than it’s ever been before.

    Traditional modes of STEM learning simply don’t correlate to the vast and exiting world of applied science in ways that stimulate the tech-savvy modern student, causing a deep disconnect between student and subject. And that is where CK-12 steps in. Throughout the past decade, CK-12 has been working alongside teachers, curriculum writers and education professionals to provide easier access to STEM education by creating a world-class digital K-12 STEM platform that can be accessed by students and educators all over the world for free. Offering unique interactive content and flexible authoring tools, CK-12 empowers educators and students by simultaneously cutting down on expensive textbook costs while providing stimulating, up-to-date content that can be seamlessly integrated into any lesson plan.

    Packed an ever expanding database of games, fluid lesson plans, informative videos and immersive real world simulations and online activities, CK-12 is fast becoming an indispensable online resource for teachers and students alike.  And since all of CK-12 content is fully customizable, it puts an end to the traditional one-size-fits-all approach by giving teachers the freedom to supplement their curricula with hand-picked content, texts, activities and quizzes that are perfectly tailored to their specific teaching style.

    Another way in which CK-12 is changing the landscape of STEM education is with its highly versatile interactive FlexBooks. Much more than mere digital textbooks, FlexBooks allow teachers to totally customize their lesson plans with interactive multimedia content that connects each learning concept to the real world in ways that make STEM learning immersive and engaging again. And while traditional textbooks are slow and expensive to update, CK-12 FlexBooks are able to easily keep pace with the rapidly advancing world of science and technology.

    Another major impediment to good STEM learning in this country has been accessibility. Quite simply, not enough students have had access to quality learning materials in science and math. Which is why CK-12 has dedicated itself to unprecedented openness. Offering multi-platform functionality, and nearly endless opportunities for customization, CK-12 allows teachers to shape their lesson plans as they see fit with content that can be accessed free of charge from pretty much any device, obliterating obstacles like expensive textbooks and impractical tutoring programs.

    With math, science and engineering becoming more critical than ever before when it comes to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems, turning around this country’s declining STEM trend is absolutely essential to our future. CK-12 represents just one innovative approach to this national crisis, and although we’ve still got a long road ahead, it feels like a massive step in the right direction.

  • Venus, the Morning Star: Interesting Facts from NASA Expert

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    Author Bio: Dr. Claudia Alexander flies spacecraft by day at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She got to crash the Galileo spacecraft into the planet Jupiter (on purpose), as the last project manager of that historic mission. She studies comets and icy moons, and currently serves as the NASA Project Scientist for the Rosetta mission (a European Space Agency mission). By night she re-imagines the universe with fiction writing. The first of her STEM education, science-learning book series for kids ages 8-10, titled Windows to Adventure, will launch in November 2013. Aside from children’s chapter learning books, she has written a number of steampunk (retro-futuristic) short stories, and a full length elf-punk novel. Follow her on twitter at @claudiauthorsci, @Windows2Adventr & @redphoenixbooks. See emerging artwork for the book series, see this Pinterest URL: http://pinterest.com/RedPhoenixBooks/book-2-windows-to-adventure-venus-artwork/

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    Today I’m going to talk about the planet Venus, often called a sister-planet to Earth. It is virtually the same size, with approximately the same length year, with a surface crust that is approximately the same age! Just one planet closer to the Sun, one would think that therefore it would have a similar temperature and environment as Earth  – the sort of neighboring planet that you could visit like you visit your neighbor’s house.

    Venus, visible in the red glow of sunset near the Pleadies, in the constellation Taurus [2007]. Credit: Michel Hersen.

    Nothing could be further from the truth! Venus is a radically different planet than Earth, starting with the fact that there is no water whatsoever, and its surface is fiercely hot (700 degrees F!).

    How can a planet so similar in size and crustal features to Earth, presumably made of the same stuff, be so radically different?

    The truth is that with Magellan, Venus Express, and other missions, we are only starting to learn about our sister planet, and the geophysical forces that may have shaped both Earth and Venus.

    Venus, the character, standing outside Rashad’s house on Earth, shows how Venus, the planet, is visible for a few minutes just after sunset.

    To try to introduce geophysical concepts about Venus (and by extension Earth) to a reading audience of approximately 3rd and 4th grade(s), I included the topic in my Windows to Adventure STEM-education, science-learning book series.

    Angie and Rashad have discovered a magical creature than can transport them to different planets, on exploratory adventures.

    It’s important for kids (and adults) to know that Venus is visible by the naked eye almost everyday, just before dawn and/or just after sunset. That’s why it’s known as the ‘Morning star’ or ‘Evening star.’ As shown here, we try to make that point with both artwork and photography. Nothing gives me more pleasure than, for example, the illustrators who work on this project call me up excitedly to tell me that they’ve just seen Venus for the first time in their lives (or realized finally what they were looking at).

    To reinforce the notion of just how hot the surface is the visit requires a space-suit-like ‘bubble’ suit that prevents them from burning up, and provides the oxygen they need to breathe in the largely carbon-dioxide atmosphere of Venus.

    Angie and Rashad get to experience the atmosphere of Venus with a ride in a fantastic ‘cloud cabana,’ positioned just below the very dense cloud deck of Venus – positioned much higher up than a plane would fly on Earth. The cloud cabana takes them on a grand tour of the continents of Venus. (Imagine being taken on a grand tour of planet Earth in the space of about 15 minutes! What features would You show a visitor about planet Earth in such a short space of time? Grins).

    Venus doesn’t have official ‘continents’ as we think of them on Earth because continental crust is actually quite different than ocean crust, and stands above Earth’s ocean waters. Instead, scientists have labeled the land masses that stand above Venus' mean equatorial radius ‘Highlands,’ and those deep, nether regions that are analogs of Earth’s ocean basins & trenches as ‘Lowlands.’

    Topographic map of the surface of Venus, showing its three major Highland regions. Those are: Ishtar Terra (yellow region at the middle top); Aphrodite Terra (long, narrow, yellow & green region along the equator to the right); and Lada Terra (green region along the south polar region). Other ‘island-like’ highland ‘Regios’ are seen in yellow on the left, middle, and elsewhere. Lowlands are indicated in blue.

    It’s a fascinating exercise to consider what Venus might look like as an ocean-covered planet (like Earth), in which Ishtar Terra and Aphrodite Terra stand above the water as real continents! For fun, our illustrator took the liberty in a work-in-progress painting like this (we’ll be working on this in the days to come, to make it sharper):

    Venus’ surface features, including the island-like Regios, include many mountains and volcanoes. In fact, the surface of Venus seems to be covered with volcanic outflows. The island-like Regios seem to have been formed in a similar process to that of the Hawaiian islands – in which a crustal hot spot, buried deep in the planet’s mantle, pours out volcanic lava and builds a cone, or in the case of Venus, a sizeable, island-like mass (of sizes similar to the state of Arizona).

    An imaginary, water-covered Venus, with Ishtar Terra (yellow land mass) featured prominently.

    The surface of Venus doesn’t move the way the surface of Earth moves. Nonetheless, the surface of Venus does, in fact, move. Only slowly, and with more features that suggest stretching, rather than with so-called ‘Plate Tectonics’ we are familiar with on Earth.

    Let’s take a quick look at Venus’ tallest mountain, named ‘Maxwell Montes’ after scientist James Clerk Maxwell. This mountain, named Maxwell, seems to have been formed by a folding/compressing process.  

    Sketch of Maxwell Montes realized as a human-like character with a face.

    Here’s a different view of this interesting landmass from YouTube (about 90 seconds in duration): http://pinterest.com/pin/569142471629997509/

    Mountains like Maxwell Montes seem to have been created by a stretching and compressing process on Venus that greatly resembles the same process on Earth that created the East African Rift.

    So we have a great many questions left about planet Venus – what is its chemistry? What is the geophysics of how the forces that move the surface work? How did it come to have so much carbon dioxide in its atmosphere since it is a sister-planet to Earth and formed largely in a similar spot in the primordial solar nebula? (The answer to that question may have more to do with what makes Earth unique than phenomena of Venus).

    A schematic of a feature called a ‘rift valley’ created by the motions of hot mantle beneath the crust that force the surface to fracture and fall in (creating a giant valley) – similar to the process that has (is) creating the East Africa Rift; that created the Dead Sea; and other features on Earth.)

    There are quite a few fascinating legends about planet Venus. And Venus played a key role in the way in which early scientist understood the size of the solar system, and the fact that objects in the solar system revolved around the Sun, and not around Earth.

    Venus is a fascinating place, and I hope to dive into more details in another blog on this website, and with additional books on the topic with Windows to Adventure. Hope you enjoyed this brief introduction.

    Windows to Adventure: Venus, the Morning Star will be released soon from Red Phoenix Books.

  • Math Is Square, But Can It Become Parallel To A Star?

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    Math class is traditionally a boring subject for students and many of the teachers are under equipped to meet the technological needs of 21st century learners.

    A Simple Equation: Appropriate Tech + Well Trained Tutors/Teachers = Engaged & Excited Students which leads to more qualified people for a growing tech industry.
    Right? …
    Well, mostly. You see, professional development training Math teachers is just one method has has been found effective to raise the standards for Math education excellence. Other research has shown that private tutoring can get students back on track and really engaged in Mathematics.
    Why Private Tutoring?
    Math causes so many students to freeze up and become “squares” because it is traditionally taught in really dry ways. What student loves solving problems over and over again? However tutors can bring another level of comfort and personalization to the student allowing them to open up and really understand the material. Tutors can create personalized lessons (like pictured above) where students engage in real world mathematics. In the small class above teachers had students find patterned cloths, then calculate the angles, lengths and hypotenuse of triangles. They also had them identify shapes.
    I encourage all of you to look into tutoring as a way to raise the standards in Mathematics education as well as encourage students to find the fun in such a vital subject.
    Chris Burley – writing as a guest blogger from Krause Center for Innovation
     

  • Resources to Help Struggling Students

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    From The Online Science Educator
    By Linda and Peter Jeschofnig, Co-Founders of Hands-On Labs
    How can instructors help struggling students who need tutoring and more assistance than the course time allows? For students willing to put in the extra time and energy to genuinely grasp difficult concepts, there are many new websites that can effectively serve in a self-guided tutoring role. These sites provide students with visual and interactive aids that may drive their understanding better than traditional textual explanations.  They also provide instructors with easy access to a history of the students’ activities and progress.
    Most people think of the Khan Academy as just a collection of videos on various educational topics. However, it and similar tutorial sites like instaGrok have expanded into much larger interactive platforms that provide students with active learning and assessment tools and instructors with evaluation and tracking tools. These sites span areas of interest from elementary to college levels and cover the majority of academic topics, including the sciences. Plus, they are free!
    They are completely customizable, keeping  track of what is being learned and how much time is being spent on each topic. It is simple for teachers and coaches to quickly view their students’ data and get performance summaries to see where and if more help is needed. This tool can also guide the scheduling of content reviews to ensure more productive learning.
    When students complete these sites’ online exercises, the question “Are they learning or cheating?” can be affirmatively answered “Learning!”
    instaGrok displays an interactive web-like map with each web point representing a different concept. When a new concept’s webpoint is clicked, the web expands to related concepts, continually updating and displaying a list of key facts, images, a glossary, plus related websites, books, and videos. Graphs are kept of the student’s search history and the concepts that have been successfully covered. Students can even take notes and save key concepts in their site journal.
    Khan Academy is a great learning resource for teaching STEM topics. For math, it quizzes everything from simple calculations to calculus, letting the students check their answers as they go, get helpful hints if a reminder is needed, or watch engaging tutorial videos. The tutorial videos have question-and-answer forums that help students understand the concepts even further. Test preparation for SATs and other exams are offered as well.
    For the sciences, all disciplines from Biology and Astronomy to Organic Chemistry and Physics are covered and thoroughly addressed. In a unique selection of videos called “LeBron Asks,” NBA player LeBron James asks science questions related to certain aspects of basketball. One video addresses Newton’s third law and explains how equal and opposite force allows LeBron to make a basket. Another video explains the probability of LeBron making 10 consecutive free throws.
    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also has a section of fun and informative videos that help students realize how exciting science can be. These include some exceptionally “cool” topics such as flying robots and how to make clean water.
    Another way students can more thoroughly explore their online course topics is by simultaneously participating in all or parts of free MOOC, or Massive Open Online Course. The three major MOOC providers are edX, Coursera and Udacity.
    MIT and Harvard University partnered with edX to create not-for-profit, online-learning experiences in a variety of courses. Along with giving students an amazing free opportunity to learn from America’s most prestigious educators, “the institutions use edX to research how students learn and how technology can transform learning.”
    Coursera also partners with top universities to offer free online courses to anyone who wants to learn. A key factor in the Coursera system design “is the extensive use of interactive exercises, which are critical for student engagement and learning.”
    Udacity is another free online school whose “mission is to bring accessible, engaging, and effective higher education to the world.” Udacity also assists students in finding jobs and internships through their Career Placement Program with employers interested in finding employees who have gained specific skills and knowledge through Udacity’s courses.
    These recently available and expanding resources provide educators with more ways to enrich and expand self-directed student’ learning courses as well as offer effective tutorial assistance and encouragement to struggling students.
    Linda: http://www.holscience.com/section/about_us
    Peter: http://www.holscience.com/section/authors/peter-jeschofnig-ph

  • Free STEM Education, Anytime, Anywhere!

    Engineer4Free is a place where you can find material from university level engineering, math, and science classes that is broken down into 5-10 minute video tutorials. Certain videos provide in depth explanations of key concepts, but most are worked examples of typical problems a student would encounter.
    Whether you are struggling to understand a certain concept, or stuck on a specific problem you can likely find a tutorial on the website and be a master of the subject just a few minutes later. If you don’t understand the first time, try watching again until you have really hit the point home. I make all the tutorials in the way that I wish they were taught to me. I take it slow through everything so the viewer should have no doubt about the material.
    The project is nearing the end of its first year and there are currently four subjects available: Calculus, Linear Algebra, Chemistry, and C++ Programming. They are scheduled to be completed by the end of December, and four more subjects will be introduced early in the new year.
    The videos are concise and can even feel slow if you are familiar with a subject, yet all of the content covered in a typical semester of “Calculus I” can be observed in merely 5 and a half hours on Engineer4Free. The idea isn’t to race through everything; it’s just to get to the point.
    How is it that subjects can be taught in 1/10th of the time of university lectures? I’m still trying to figure that out, but with 100% positive feedback after delivering more than 20,000 lessons, I must be doing something right.
    Engineer4Free plans to become the number one source for free engineering tutorials. By April 2013, it should host about the same amount of information that a student would encounter in their first year of a general engineering program, and will just keep growing. Soon you will be able to find all major high level engineering subjects in one place, all for free.
    Engineer4Free isn’t competing with schools. Its helping students. Its also not just for engineers, it covers core math and science courses covered in a broad range of university programs. I encourage you to come check it out and share it with some students that you know!
    Bio: Braden is the creator of Engineer4Free. His goal is to make engineering education free and accessible to everyone. Working out of Canada, his lessons have already reached over 100 countries in less than one year. You can visit his website at www.engineer4free.com