5/17/2013 - NSTA Reports
The following excerpt is from Including Students With Disabilities in Advanced Science Classes, by Lori A. Howard and Elizabeth A. Potts, edited for publication here.
5/16/2013 - Education Week
Rhode Island may prove to be the first state to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards issued in final form last month. The state board of education is expected to vote on the standards at its next meeting, on May 23.
5/16/2013 - Huffington Post
A central Florida teenager who was accused of igniting a chemical explosion on school grounds—and who became the subject of a grassroots social media campaign on her behalf—will not face criminal charges, authorities said Wednesday.
5/15/2013 - Education Week
With the completion of new standards intended to reshape science education, the real heavy lifting now begins.
5/15/2013 - The New York Times
If engineers cannot restore a mechanism that keeps the Kepler spacecraft’s telescope pointed, one of the most romantic and successful of NASA’s missions could come to a premature end.
5/15/2013 - BBC News
Human cloning has been used to produce early embryos, marking a "significant step" for medicine, say US scientists.
5/14/2013 - Science Friday
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that were released last month outline the science content that students are expected to master at each grade level in the U.S. They’re the culmination of a long process—supported by 26 states and led by the non-profit organization ACHIEVE—to improve America’s K-12 science education and develop consistent performance expectations state to state.
5/13/2013 - NSTA Reports—Meg Streker
Understanding Asthma
5/9/2013 - NSTA Reports—Mary Bigelow
Ms. Mentor answers science teachers' questions about students who claim tests are unfair and classroom arrangement in an elementary classroom.
5/8/2013 - The Christian Science Monitor
Opinion writer Lindsay Wells says "Many teachers aren’t feeling much love this Teacher Appreciation Day. But I still believe it is possible to be a good teacher in America—and worth the effort to try. The shift toward data-driven instruction and innovation creates an environment where the 'hacker generation' can thrive."
5/8/2013 - ScienceInsider
Eugenie Scott has spent 26 years helping teachers do what's right for their students in the name of science. And while the need to defend the teaching of evolution and climate change certainly hasn't disappeared, Scott announced today that she is stepping down later this year as the founding CEO and "the public face" of the National Center for Science Education.
5/7/2013 - NSTA Reports—Debra Shapiro
As the spring semester ends, preservice graduates and some inservice teachers will begin looking for science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) teaching positions. Recently, members of NSTA’s pedagogy e-mail list shared tips for a successful career search.
5/5/2013 - NSTA Reports—Lynn Petrinjak
In a recent informal NSTA Reports survey, 65% of educators said their schools allow students to bring and use their own personal devices in school, and 55% said student devices were permitted to connect to the school network. About a third of educators (36%) said more than 75% of their students bring in their own electronic devices, while 28% reported less than a quarter of their students did so.
5/3/2013 - NSTA Reports—Debra Shapiro
Aspirnaut™, a partnership between Vanderbilt University Medical Center of Nashville, Tennessee, and rural K–12 schools to help recruit and develop the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce, began in 2007 as a program enabling rural Arkansas students to study science and math via wireless internet during their 90-minute school bus rides. Since then, the program has expanded, and now “beams”—via videoconferencing—hands–on, inquiry–based STEM labs weekly into rural elementary and middle school classrooms at 13 sites in Arkansas, Maine, Montana, and Tennessee.
5/3/2013 - EdNET Insight
Discovery Communications recently announced "Connect the Dots," a new multimedia, national STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education initiative designed to provide pathways for kids to achieve today and lead tomorrow by inspiring interest in STEM subjects and careers within industries looking for highly skilled workers.
5/3/2013 - International Business Times
Scientists are tweeting and blogging in indignation in response to the story of a Florida teenager expelled from school and facing felony charges for a science experiment gone awry. Ken Roy, the director of environmental health and safety for the school district of Glastonbury, Conn., a safety adviser for the National Science Teachers Association, and a former science teacher himself, was taken aback by the harsh punishment.
4/30/2013 - NSTA Reports—Joseph Procaccini, PhD
Editorial: Bioethics plays an important role in the medical sciences and research on humans. It should also have a role in high school science courses.
4/30/2013 - Discovery News
The speed of light is constant, or so textbooks say. But some scientists are exploring the possibility that this cosmic speed limit changes, a consequence of the nature of the vacuum of space.
4/29/2013 - Los Angeles Times
British billionaire Richard Branson’s commercial space venture Virgin Galactic got one step closer to carrying tourists into space when a test pilot cracked the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert. For the first time, the company's SpaceShipTwo engaged its rocket motor and sped to Mach 1.2 and reached 56,000 feet in altitude.
4/29/2013 - Education Week
A panel of reviewers convened by the National Research Council has concluded that the final Next Generation Science Standards issued this month are consistent with an NRC framework document that sought to guide their development.
4/27/2013 - NSTA Reports—Lynn Petrinjak
A former first lady is developing plans to make insect royalty feel right at home, and hoping to inspire others to follow her example. Rosalyn Carter is planning a series of butterfly gardens that will be known as The Carter Butterfly Trail at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, Georgia.
4/26/2013 - NSTA Reports—Ted Willard and Cindy Workosky
The final version of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) was released on April 9. The new standards establish learning expectations in science for K–12 students combining three important dimensions: science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts. NGSS provides a cohesive approach to science instruction that will significantly change the way science is taught and learned.
4/23/2013 - The New York Times
Praising the work of young scientists and inventors at the third White House Science Fair, President Obama on Monday announced a broad plan to create and expand federal and private-sector initiatives designed to encourage children to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
4/22/2013 - The Ashbury Park Press
The “Fantastic Four” proudly stood around an experiment they had been working on for months. They were among five other groups in the school’s media center showcasing their final projects they had submitted to judges for the eCYBERMISSION challenge, a Web-based Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) competition, sponsored by the Army and partnered with the National Science Teachers Association, for sixth- through ninth-graders.
4/22/2013 - The Washington Post
Last week, a bipartisan Senate panel unveiled an 844-page bill that would give U.S. immigration policies their biggest makeover in a generation. Included in the massive proposal: much higher limits on the number of “high-tech visas,” officially called H-1B visas.