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Young engineers build bridges with spaghetti:
After adding all the weights available to them, Katiraie ran into another room to retrieve more. The team’s bridge held almost 60 times its actual weight before splintering.
I certainly don’t know if this is true, or the even the consensus of the scientific thought today, but it happens to feel right to me. Not exactly a scientific conclusion but there you go. From, Psychology Today says, A Nation of Wimps:
As infants and children this group experiences stress in situations most kids find unthreatening, and they may go through childhood and even adulthood fearful of unfamiliar people and events, withdrawn and shy. At school age they become cautious, quiet and introverted. Left to their own devices they grow up shrinking from social encounters. They lack confidence around others. They’re easily influenced by others. They are sitting ducks for bullies. And they are on the path to depression.
Well for whatever it is worth I think the article is interesting (I am not exactly sure about the introversion part that doesn’t seem to have a strong ring of truth but I do think it is better to experience real failure and overcome it than be too sheltered and without that you don’t learn confidence you just are kept from having to feel discomfort as long as the adults protect you…) even if it is just because it attacks something I find a bit annoying the increasing tendency to act like mistakes are not mistakes, failure to achieve an objective doesn’t matter, kids should not be challenged… I don’t think coddling is a good way to create confident people that function well in the world.
People need to learn that things often don’t work the way you might think or hope, things are not fair, things can hurt you, you can loose things you care about, if you make a decision you have to live with the consequences… It is not that hard to understand these things. Kids might well prefer to just be handed everything they want without an risk or effort on their part. But I believe they will learn how to cope and take pride in actually doing good stuff. Which will work much better than trying to convince them they should take pride in something even they can probably tell is fake, coddling. Of course I don’t have any kids either so my opinions are not only not put into practice by me. Oh well go read the article if you are interested.
Butterfly shows evolution at work
Scientists believe the comeback is due to “suppressor” genes that control the Wolbachia bacteria that is passed down from the mother and kills the male embryos before they hatch. “To my knowledge, this is the fastest evolutionary change that has ever been observed,” said Sylvain Charlat, of University College London, whose study appears in the journal Science.
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“We’re witnessing an evolutionary arms race between the parasite and the host. This strengthens the view that parasites can be major drivers in evolution,” Mr Charlat said.
It makes a great deal of sense that evolution would have such bursts under the right conditions. This seems an nearly perfect example of such conditions - if males can be produced they are going to have a large opening to reproduce and rapidly pass on a new tool to fight the bacteria. The University of California - Berkeley has a good site on understanding evolution (with lesson plans for k-16 and information for anyone interested in science).
Relates: Two Butterfly Species Evolved Into Third - Evolution in Darwin’s Finches - Evolution In Action - Evo-Devo
Can These Kids Save American Science?
The top three winners of the ISEF receive a $50,000 scholarship and $4 million in cash and scholarships are awarded. Related: Intel ISEF Awards 2006 - Science Fair Project on Bacterial Growth on Packaged Salads - Amber’s Science Talent Search Blog - Science Fair Directory
Ruth McDonald selected for Einstein Fellowship program:
The fellowship program offers current public or private elementary and secondary mathematics, technology, and science classroom teachers with “demonstrated excellence in teaching” an opportunity to make an impact in the national public policy arena. Fellowships enhance understanding, communication, and cooperation between legislative and executive branches and the science, mathematics, and technology education community.
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McDonald’s 11-month fellowship assignment is with the National Science Foundation. She will receive a stipend for her work from September 2007 through July 2008. “It’s not really a job,” she explained. “It’s a professional growth and development opportunity, with a focus on science, math, and technology. I’m excited about the resources this experience can bring to our district.”
McDonald, who said the district’s willingness to let her take time off to pursue the opportunity “shows how much they value teacher development and achievement,” said she plans to return to LCSD following the fellowship. Until then, she will provide insight into her experience via blogging and videoconferencing, continuing the use of technology that helped land her in Washington D.C. in the first place.
Related: Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program - Ruth Mcdonald’s Blog - posts on k-12 science education - NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education - Excellence in K-12 Mathematics and Science Teaching
Planning ahead: UW game teaches kids, mixes virtual, real worlds
The students work for a fictitious firm called Urban Design Associates, are assigned the title of planner, carry business cards and do field research in actual neighborhoods, armed with digital cameras and notebooks, under the guidance of graduate students in the educational psychology department. As part of the game, the grad students are known as planning consultants.
I like the real world and technology interaction for education. I believe getting kids involved with real world problems is a good way to get them interested in learning.
Related: Engineering Activities: for 9 to 12 Year Olds - Inspiring a New Generation of Inventors - Getting Students Hooked on Engineering
See the National Underwater Robotics Challenge web site for information on the event in Arizona June 8th through 10th. They offer a remote underwater vehicle kit for $250.
There will be a live video stream June 9 at 8pm MST and will continue to until about 2am MST June 10. The video will come from both the ROV and in the pool with event cameras in and around the submarine. Once the video has been processed and mixed poolside by Arizona State University’s Applied Learning Technologies Institute, it will then be channeled to Chandler High School’s television studio, where it will be broadcast to a view gallery and simultaneously sent to a server at ASU where it will be webcast to the world.
Related: La Vida Robot - great Wired article on the Carl Hayden High School - Unmanned Water Vehicles - Northwest FIRST Robotics Competition
Video of the ROV in a box:
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CatCam by Juergen Perthold - this great project involved taking a digital camera and some additional equipment to create a camera that his cat wore around his neck which took pictures every 3 minutes. The pictures are great. The cat got photos of several other cats and seemed to like cars.
See more cool gadgets, See our other popular posts and our cat related posts.
For the second try I used the plastic package of a child toy (Kinderueberraschung), put a stone in it for loading it with some weight and attached it again to the cat collar. This time the part returned - dirty and scratched outside, water inside. What the hell is the cat doing !? This raised the requirements for the camera protective housing a lot
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Big moment no. 1: attach the collar with the camera to the cat. The reaction was not very happy but finally accepted. Reality check passed 
This is my favorite home engineering project. The concept is great. The explanation of the technology is great. The adjustment to real life situations is great. The end result (the photos) is great. This wins the non-existent Curious Cat Cool Contraption award. If someone doesn’t start selling prefabricated cat cameras I will be very surprised (if I was more enterprising I would do it myself). Maybe J. Perthold will, in any event he should inspire many to try making their own.
Related: The Cat and a Black Bear - Automatic Cat Feeder - The sub-$1,000 UAV Project
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Curriki Global Education and Learning Community
Another promising looking effort, though they do need to improving the editing of content. They also need to add tools to make it easy to find the content others have found most beneficial. And they should improve the accessibility of the content - all of it should be available using a browser (now some content is presented only as zipped files, some are word documents…). 200 science and 150 math documents are available now including: Big Cats and Intro to Electricity . The site includes content hosted itself and links to content hosted on other sites.
Related: Open Access Education Materials - Online Mathematics Textbooks - Encyclopedia of Life - MIT for Free
Interesting post on Keeping students interested in Computer Science by an 11th grader:
Very true. Engaging students, as with all teaching, is critical to making learning not just tolerable but fun.
Related: Electrical Engineering Student by college student - Inspire Students to Study Math and Science by another high school student - A Career in Computer Programming - Programming with Pictures - Want to be a Computer Game Programmer?
Chris Anderson continues his progress with the sub $1,000 autonomous flight vehicle (using lego mindstorms at the core). He has created a site to track the progress and provide information resources to others: DIY Drones. Very cool.
Related: The sub-$1,000 UAV Project - Lego Autopilot Project Update - Building minds by building robots - Fun k-12 Science and Engineering Learning
Contest links high school students worldwide:
“The most important goal is to engage U.S. students in international collaboration using science and technology,” said David Gibson, executive director of the Global Challenge and a research assistant professor in computer sciences at the University of Vermont. The idea for the contest came to management consultant Craig DeLuca two years ago as one of his clients planned to outsource design and manufacturing, and his community in Stowe considered putting off buying science textbooks.
“I’ve got to do something so that our kids have a shot in the global economy,” he said then. He launched the contest in Vermont, and last fall it was awarded a $900,000 National Science Foundation Grant and expanded worldwide. Winners will be announced in June.
Not only does the contest encourage interaction between students across the globe to solve problems, it also exposes them to opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math, Gibson said. “We need projects like this across the nation, so we can scoop these kids up because schools don’t do it for them,” he said.
Seed Magazine has one page crib sheets on science topics as guides for living in the 21st century. For example, String Theory:
Other topics: stem cells, climate change, avian flu, hybrid cars, nuclear power, hurricanes, extinction and the elements. Great stuff.
Related: Physics Concepts in 60 Seconds
Do your own experiment on quantum erasing - Quantum Erasing in the Home (for instructions). From the accompanying article, A Do-It-Yourself Quantum Eraser:
Nevertheless, the individual photons that make up the light wave are indeed doing the full quantum dance with all its weirdness intact, although you could only truly prove that by sending the photons through the apparatus and detecting them one at a time. Such a procedure, unfortunately, remains beyond the average home experimenter.
Related: Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids - Particles and Waves
via our post suggestion page, this Toy and Entertainment Engineering camp looks interesting (for students or a teacher) to me.
My name is Rebecca and I work for a Branded Camp Services. We design and operate residential academic summer camps for high school students.
This year, at Union College in Schenectady, we will be offering a course in Toy and Entertainment Engineering. I’m looking to hire an
energetic teacher for both two-week sessions in July. Most of our teachers are currently in graduate school or recent graduates. This
class is brand new and we’re having a harder time recruiting because of its specialized nature.
Thanks! You can apply by writing me at Rebecca at brandedcampservices.com
Chemist, Educator, Communicator Receives 2007 National Science Board Public Service Award
Science if Fun with University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Professor Bassam Z. Shakhashiri.
Related: Public Service Award - Science Education in the 21st Century - 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry - 2006 MacArthur Fellows - 2006 Draper Prize for Engineering
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