11/20/2009 - Education Week
As the U.S. Department of Education prepares final rules for the $650 million Investing in Innovation Fund, officials face strong concerns from school districts and philanthropies that requiring matching funds from the private sector is unworkable and would turn foundations into the gatekeepers for these federal grants.
11/20/2009 - National Science Foundation
A television feature about growing diamonds in the lab, and a radio story that dramatizes some strange coincidences in a discussion of randomness and probability won recognition earlier this month in the 2009 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.
11/20/2009 - Jamaica Plain Gazette
Nicole Yana Davis won a fellowship through the National Science Teachers Association's New Science Teacher Academy.
11/20/2009 - The Olympian
Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday she opposes state schools chief Randy Dorn's proposal to delay the requirement for students to pass math and science tests to graduate, because the state's economy depends on Washington students leaving high school well trained in both subjects.
11/20/2009 - The Boston Globe
Three school districts and a coalition of charter schools have agreed to be test kitchens for some radical ideas for improving teacher quality—from paying new teachers to spend another year practicing before getting their own class to letting student test scores affect teacher pay. In exchange, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is handing them the biggest pile of cash it has spent on education reform in about a decade.
11/19/2009 - USA Today
Teaching is more than lecturing: It is helping students experience their education, say the four 2009 U.S. Professors of the Year, who are being recognized today by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
11/19/2009 - Reuters
Increasing the levels of a message-carrying chemical in the brain may help prevent some of the memory deficits in Down syndrome that hinder learning and make it hard for the brain to develop normally, according to researchers.
11/19/2009 - The New York Times (requires free registration)
A new report on Innovation for Development out of the European Business School ranks countries' ability to propel innovation in ways that advance societies. (The U.S. comes in third, behind Sweden and Finland.)
11/19/2009 - The Boston Globe
Computer products are popular among older Americans searching for ways to stay mentally sharp. Researchers, however, have yet to determine whether these brain games deliver what they promise.
11/19/2009 - Education Week (requires registration)
Adolescents' needs have been overlooked by researchers and policymakers intent on boosting parental engagement, a new book concludes.
11/19/2009 - ScienceNews
The stars that are just right to support life might be dimmer and longer-lived than the Sun.
11/18/2009 - The Guardian
Scientists have repaired the world's largest atom smasher and plan by this weekend to restart the machine.
11/18/2009 - eSchool News
To learn from colleagues abroad, a delegation of U.S. education technology leaders from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) visited Scotland and the Netherlands last week to learn more about the world's first national intranet for education, international approaches to online safety, and more.
11/18/2009 - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Top public and private universities teamed up with members of Congress to launch a new website and related efforts to highlight the role of the multibillion-dollar economic-stimulus legislation in fostering research both on and off campus.
11/18/2009 - NSTA Reports
NSTA Dates to Remember
11/18/2009 - The Los Angeles Times
Classrooms that have replaced chairs with balls and ball chairs see better results. The devices sharpen students' attention and improve posture, teachers say.
11/18/2009 - National Geographic News
In the oceans of a moon hundreds of millions of miles from the Sun, something fishy may be alive—right now.
11/18/2009 - Voice of America News
An international team of scientists has discovered heart disease in ancient Egyptian mummies, dispelling the view that cardiovascular disease is an illness of modern humans.
11/17/2009 - eSchool News
Train every pre-service teacher to teach online in teacher-education programs at colleges and universities; invest in the development of open courseware with federal and state funding; encourage the use of technology to create new forms of assessment that better measure student learning gains; provide national standards for school IT support: These are some of the many recommendations the U.S. Department of Education has received so far as officials prepare a new National Education Technology Plan.
11/17/2009 - NSTA Reports
Activity 19: Exploring Cellular Shape Using Area
11/17/2009 - Discover
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act prevents both employers and insurance companies from requiring genetic tests or from using your family's medical history against you.
11/17/2009 - U.S. News & World Report
Short-term memory may depend in a surprising way on the ability of newly formed neurons to erase older connections. The report provides some of the first evidence in mice and rats that new neurons sprouted in the hippocampus cause the decay of short-term fear memories in that brain region, without an overall memory loss.
11/17/2009 - Reuters
People who have had repeated flu infections—or repeated flu vaccines—may have some protection against the new pandemic swine influenza, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
11/16/2009 - NSTA Reports—Lynn Petrinkjak
You know your students are doing good work, but how do you know how they compare to their peers around your region or the country? For teachers using project-based learning in their curricula, competitions can be the answer.
11/16/2009 - The New York Times (requires free registration)
Thousands of teachers are selling lesson plans online. While some of the money is going toward classroom supplies, some teachers are spending it on themselves, leading school officials to question who owns material developed for public school classrooms.