Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin

TCEB SCHEDULING NOTICE

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The TCEB will next be issued on January 6, 2011.

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In an unexpected move at the tail end of the “lame duck” session, Congress passed the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (H.R. 5116) on Tuesday. The bill is now on its way to the President’s desk for signature. The COMPETES Act is game-changing piece of legislation for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, education and makes significant investments in innovation and basic research. The bill includes the STEM Education Coordination Act, which will provide overall coordination of federal programs and activities in support of STEM education. It also reauthorizes a number of other federal STEM education programs including those at the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy. COMPETES based on recommendations in the National Academies’ 2005 Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, which recommended investments to support basic research, improve STEM education, and foster innovation. Find out more in the Triangle Coalition Legislative Blog.   

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EINSTEIN FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION OPEN THROUGH JANUARY 4TH

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Applications are currently being accepted for the 2011-2012 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship, now through January 4, 2011. The program seeks teachers who have a strong background of teaching success coupled with a strong interest in education policy. Fellows receive living, moving, and traveling stipends while spending a school year in Washington, DC. Einstein Fellowships provide current public or private elementary and secondary science, mathematics, and technology classroom teachers with demonstrated excellence in teaching, an opportunity to serve in the national public policy arena. Albert Einstein Fellows bring to Congress and appropriate branches of the federal government, the extensive knowledge and experience of classroom teachers. They provide practical insights and "real world" perspectives to policy makers and program managers developing or managing education programs.

The Program was enacted by Congress and is funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science, with participation from federal agencies which have included: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. To learn more about the program, or to apply, visit www.einsteinfellows.org.

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HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS INSPIRED TO CREATE GREEN TRANSPORTATION IDEAS

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High school girls now have the opportunity to develop clean and green public transportation ideas through a new, scalable community action project, "Green Riders: Innovative Transportation Systems." Teen girls will be challenged to increase public transportation ridership while decreasing environmental impact. They will examine plans and prototypes for fuel systems, bus technologies and access to public transportation. Girls will act as ambassadors for their peers and larger community by advocating and engineering design solutions for their local transportation municipality. "Providing girls the opportunity to present their innovations to a real audience encourages them to think and learn like scientists and engineers," said Melissa Koch, InnovaTE3 principal investigator and a senior education developer at SRI International. "The more they can expect to do well in science and engineering and see the value that these careers have for making our world a better place, the more likely they will be to choose these careers for themselves."

The transportation solutions project guides girls in developing real-world innovations for their own community and serves as a model for youth development programs that promote youth-led science and engineering projects. AC Transit employees will serve as professional role models and provide a real world, meaningful context for the youth to experience careers needed to develop innovation for their increasingly environmentally challenged world. The collaborative project is part of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded InnovaTE3 program, developed by SRI, TERC, and Girls Inc. of Alameda County (California) to challenge high school girls to develop ecologically sustainable innovations such as green buildings and clean transportation solutions for their communities. The goal of the InnovaTE3 program is to motivate girls to explore Earth system science, and the science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) fields and careers needed to address these important problems. For more information about InnovaTE3, visit www.sri.com/policy/GreenRiders.      

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HIGH SCHOOLS FALL SHORT ON COLLEGE SUPPORT, STUDENT RESEARCHERS FIND

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Students do not get the college-going help they need from schools until far too late in the game, according to an extraordinary new report by a research team of 25 diverse high school students from Tennessee and Washington. Instead, parents and guardians largely step into the gap, according to their study, "Hear Us Out," which was recently released by the Center for Youth Voice in Policy and Practice at What Kids Can Do, Inc., a nonprofit based in Providence, RI. Three-quarters of the respondents named their families as the chief source of college motivation and support, even when their parents and guardians had not attended college themselves. In contrast, almost a third said they had never spoken with a school counselor about college. Although that percentage dropped to 12 percent by twelfth grade, 28 percent of seniors said they had completed their college application mostly on their own. Student researchers based their findings on surveys of close to 5,000 peers in nine comprehensive high schools, five in Seattle and four in Chattanooga and Hamilton County, Tennessee. Another 225 students participated in videotaped student-led focus groups and individual interviews.

Conversations about setting their sights on college began early for 86 percent of students and came to a peak in sixth through ninth grades. But respondents said they lacked concrete advice from school sources in the critical early high school years. Encountering a problem moving ahead with college plans, 86 percent of students said they would turn to a parent or guardian, compared to 38 percent who said they would consult a school counselor, and 33 percent a teacher. Aware of the constraints caused by overloaded counselors and shrinking school budgets, the student researchers urged community partners to step in with support and coaching for families and youth. They also asked for mentoring from "near peers" -- college students from similar backgrounds who could share practical advice about access and success. Supported by Lumina Foundation for Education, Hear Us Out was a collaborative effort by What Kids Can Do (WKCD), the Public Education Foundation in Chattanooga, and the Alliance for Education in Seattle. 

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2011 IS THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF CHEMISTRY

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The year 2011 has been designated as the International Year of Chemistry. The IYC is an official United Nations International Year, proclaimed at the UN as a result of the initiative of IUPAC and UNESCO. Under the theme "Chemistry -- Our Life, Our Future," IYC will consist of a year-long series of events, educational lectures, exhibits, and experiments around the globe designed to focus the world's attention on the importance of chemistry in supporting basic human and economic needs. These activities will be kicked off with the official International Year of Chemistry Opening Ceremony, to be held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris January 27-28, 2011. IYC also coincides with the 100th anniversary of both the Nobel Prize award to Madame Marie Curie. Programming will highlight women in chemistry and international partnerships, with the aim of increasing public appreciation of chemistry, encouraging interest in chemistry among young people and generating enthusiasm for the creative future of this science. IYC 2011 events will emphasize that chemistry is a creative science essential for sustainability and improvements to our way of life. Activities, such as lectures, exhibits, and hands-on experiments, will explore how chemical research is critical for solving our most vexing global problems involving food, water, health, energy, transportation, and more.

IUPAC will feature the change in the standard atomic weights table as part of associated IYC activities. For the first time in history, a change will be made to the atomic weights of some elements listed on the Periodic table of the chemical elements posted on walls of chemistry classrooms and on the inside covers of chemistry textbooks worldwide. The new table will express atomic weights of 10 elements -- hydrogen, lithium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, chlorine, and thallium -- as intervals, having upper and lower bounds, to more accurately reflect how these elements are found in nature and convey variation in atomic weight. For example, sulfur is commonly known to have a standard atomic weight of 32.065. However, its actual atomic weight can be anywhere between 32.059 and 32.076, depending on where the element is found. More details about IYC are at www.chemistry2011.org.  

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EARTH SCIENCE TEACHER AWARD DEADLINE APPROACHES

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January 5 is the deadline for applications for the 2011 Edward C. Roy, Jr. Award for Excellence in K-8 Earth Science Teaching, offered by the American Geological Institute (AGI) and the AGI Foundation. Each year, this award recognizes one full-time U.S. teacher from kindergarten to eighth grade for leadership and innovation in Earth science education. The winner will receive a $2,500 prize and an additional grant of $1,000 to enable the recipient to attend the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Annual Conference in San Francisco in March 2011 to accept the award. This award is named in honor of Dr. Edward C. Roy, Jr., a past president of AGI, who was a strong and dedicated supporter of Earth science education. To learn more, visit www.agiweb.org/education/awards/ed-roy.

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.TRACKNG GRADUATION RATES OVER EXTENDED YEARS OF STUDY

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TCEB Sponsors

This issue of the TCEB is made possible by a grant from:

3M 

3M is a diversified technology company committed to providing practical and ingenious solutions to help customers succeed.

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To find out how your organization can sponsor the TCEB or support the Triangle Coalition in other ways, visit www.trianglecoalition.org/support.htm

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The TCEB is a newsletter provided to members of the Triangle Coalition. Triangle Coalition members may forward individual articles or the issue in its entirety to internal member lists, providing that credit is given to the Triangle Coalition, and contact information is included in any republication.
Member organizations that choose to redistribute the TCEB internally must provide an electronic method for these additional recipients to be removed from the member organization's mailing list.

For TCEB subscription or membership information, contact:
Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education
1840 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 201
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone: 800-582-0115
Fax: 703-516-5969
E-mail: tricoal@triangle-coalition.org
URL: www.trianglecoalition.org
To submit information for possible inclusion in TCEB, contact tcebeditor@aol.com

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