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Teaching Students to Understand Animals

11/6/2009 - NSTA Reports—Debra Shapiro
Debra Corbett, a science teacher at Assumption High School in Louisville, Kentucky, doesn't just bring animals to her classroom for students to learn about: She takes her students to the animals.

Amelia and the Physics of Flight

11/6/2009 - Jacob Clark Blickenstaff—NSTA Reports
What is there for a science teacher to sink his or her teeth into in Amelia? There is a lot of flying, and that means a lot of physics.

Tweak Gravity: What If There Is No Dark Matter?

11/6/2009 - Scientific American
Modifications to the theory of gravity could account for observational discrepancies, but not without introducing other complications.

Sick of Swine Flu? Here Comes H3N2

11/6/2009 - ScienceInsider
Although the world's attention is focused on the novel H1N1 virus causing the swine flu pandemic, H3N2, a seasonal strain of influenza, has popped up in many East Asian countries—and some variants in circulation may outfox the seasonal vaccine in use.

Tweeting in Class

11/6/2009 - Inside Higher Ed
Do Twitter skeptics really believe the popular microblogging service offers no educational value, or are they just afraid of it?

Tiny Tech Sparks Cell Signal Find

11/6/2009 - BBC News
Tiny metal particles have been shown to cause changes to DNA across a cellular barrier—without having to cross it.

Seven Cities Launch Collaborative Efforts to Improve

11/6/2009 - EducationNews.org
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced $4 million in grants to the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education, and Families, and seven cities to boost college graduation rates by better coordinating the services that colleges, schools, and communities provide to students.

Minority Students Earned Greater Number of Academic Degrees in Fiscal Year 2006

11/6/2009 - National Science Foundation
A new National Science Foundation report shows an increase in the number of academic degrees awarded to minority students since 2004, the last time such data were published.

Guest Column: DeadWeight an Example of Innovative Education

11/5/2009 - West Branch Times Online
During the same week the 2009 Nobel Prizes in science were announced, three Iowa 13-year-olds met with the Obama administration's top education and science officials to receive recognition for their own extraordinary scientific achievement.

Science in Sight: Exploring Space Science at the Library

11/5/2009 - NSTA Reports—Debra Shapiro
Students, teachers, and librarians are participating in a space and planetary science program called Explore!

Swine Flu Confirmed in Iowa Cat

11/5/2009 - Time
A 13-year-old Iowa cat has been infected with swine flu, veterinary and federal officials said Wednesday in what is believed to be the first case of the H1N1 virus in a feline in the United States.

Election Offers Varied Impact for Education

11/5/2009 - Education Week (requires registration)
The results from Tuesday's state and local elections around the country offer some potentially significant implications for K-12 education, as voters sent two big-city mayors with authority over their school systems back for another term and replaced Democrats with Republicans in two governors' mansions.

Midwest Quakes Are Aftershocks from 1800s

11/5/2009 - MSNBC
The small earthquakes that sporadically rattle the central United States may actually be aftershocks from a few extremely large quakes that occurred in the region almost 200 years ago, according to a new study.

A Powerful Identity, a Vanishing Diagnosis

11/5/2009 - The New York Times (requires free registration)
Experts want to remove an autism label from a diagnostic manual, but people with the disorder are divided.

Why Johnny Can't Hypothesize: A Discussion about Math and Science Education

11/5/2009 - Scientific American
A panel of experts, moderated by The Wall Street Journal's managing editor gathered recently to discuss some of the challenges behind improving K-12 math and science education across the country.

A Wish List of 10,000 Genomes

11/5/2009 - ScienceInsider
Heartened by a continuing rapid decline in the cost of genome sequencing, a group of genome and museum experts has launched an ambitious plan to decipher 10,000 vertebrate genomes.

Rethinking Scientific Inquiry

11/4/2009 - NSTA Reports—Mark Windschitl
While many science teachers do instill a sense of excitement and curiosity about the natural world in their students, even for young learners, science should be about evidence, causal explanation, and the testing of models—however basic these models might be.

At Top Schools, More Than Half the Profs Have Industry Ties

11/4/2009 - The Wall Street Journal
A survey conducted in 2006-07 and published this week in the journal Health Affairs found that 53% of academic research faculty in the life sciences at top schools reported financial ties to industry.

The Mountains That Froze the World

11/4/2009 - ScienceNow Daily News
The rise of the Appalachians plunged Earth into an ice age so severe that it drove nearly two-thirds of all living species extinct. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that the mountains' rocks absorbed enough greenhouse gas to freeze the planet.

Race to the Top Education Grant Propels Reforms

11/4/2009 - USA Today
It's relatively small by Washington standards, but the Obama administration's $4.35 billion carrot for schools is already leading states to adopt a handful of key reforms.

Advanced Math, Science Mandatory

11/4/2009 - ArgusLeader.com
Despite criticism that they are setting the bar too high, the South Dakota Board of Education passed a new set of high school graduation rules Monday that make upper- level math and science classes mandatory.

Messenger Spies Iron on Mercury

11/4/2009 - BBC News
Mercury is even more of an "iron planet" than scientists had previously supposed. Richer concentrations of iron and titanium have been seen on Mercury's surface by Nasa's Messenger probe.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, French Anthropologist, Dies at 100

11/4/2009 - The Washington Post (requires free registration)
Claude Lévi-Strauss, 100, one of the preeminent social anthropologists of the 20th century, died over the weekend in Paris. He was best-known for popularizing a social science theory known as "structuralism."

Former Apple Executive to Lead U.S. Ed-Tech Office

11/4/2009 - Education Week (requires registration)
After months of anticipation about who would head educational technology initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education , ed-tech advocates praised the appointment of Karen Cator, saying the former educator and Apple executive brings to the job a passion for the potential of technology to improve teaching and learning.

ARL Student Receives National Honor

11/3/2009 - Aggie Town Square
USU graduate student Mark Towner, a science teacher at Granite Park Middle School in Salt Lake City, was chosen from hundreds of applications nationwide to participate as an Amgen-National Science Teachers Association Fellow in the 2009 NSTA New Science Teacher Academy.

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