According to Oracle ThinkQuest Education Foundation, women do 66 percent of the world’s work but receive only 11 percent of the world’s income. The number of women in leadership roles is slowly increasing, but it is not even close to 50 percent. Meanwhile, there are 6 million more women than men in the world. And [...]
Posted in Back to School, Games, News, Online Tools, Physics, Science, technology, Video Games 
Tags: girls in stem, Laser photonics, laser physics, lasers, Sarah Boisvert, STEM 
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Even when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, a new renewable energy tile quietly captures kinetic energy from footfall traffic and converts it into energy to power lights, even indoors. And that is exactly what Pavegen is doing with its Kickstarter campaign. If this campaign is fully funded, two lucky schools (one [...]
Posted in Back to School, Crowdsource, Electronics, Environmental Conservation, Science, TED Tags: Kickstarter, Pavegen, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, TED Comments OffGoogle’s new moonshot thinking initiative, Solve for X, is a TED-like big idea gathering where iconic thinkers’ talks are video recorded and shared freely online. Of particular interest is Nicholas Negroponte’s talk on tablet computing technology innovations that might revolutionize learning in the emerging world. Nicholas talks about amazing innovations for tablet devices. Someday soon, [...]
Posted in Learning Methods, Reading, Science, social change Tags: Android, Constructivist, literacy, Nicholas Negroponte, One Tablet Per Child, Seymour Papert, tablet devices Comments OffCyberchase, an Emmy Award-winning animated series for 8-11 year-olds is now completely available online. This fun, STEM-rich series is full of hands-on math, engineering, and physics lessons weaved creatively into the stories. Learn more about Cyberchase over at GeekMom
Posted in Activities, Interdisciplinary, Math, Online Tools, Science, STEAM Tags: computers, Cyberchase, PBS, STEM, technology, Thirteen, WNET Comments OffEnterprising engineers and graduate students are creating low-cost devices and methods for conducting basic neuroscience research. Using iPads, apps, blue LEDs, and other off-the-shelf items from Radio Shack, products like Backyard Brains are cropping up to support the DIY biology hacking movement. Building affordable scientific instruments is perhaps the biggest hurdle to accessible research in [...]
Posted in Biology, Chemistry, Electronics, Make, Science, technology Tags: backyard brains, Biology, DANA Foundation, DIY, hacking, Makers, Neuroscience Comments OffSal Khan, founder of the now famous online math and science video tutorial website Khan Academy, is thinking about expanding his online tools into the physical world and beyond. Although Sal already runs a small summer camp in Silicon Valley for science and technology middle and high schoolers, he is thinking about possibly creating a project-based [...]
Posted in Learning Methods, Online Tools, Science, STEAM, Teaching methods Tags: Crowdsourcing, eLearning, Khan Academy, Online Learning, Project-based learning, Sal Khan Comments OffAn ambitious summer camp and tech school for homeschoolers in Mountain View, California, is fast becoming a full-fledged mainstream school. At Quantum Camp, youngsters dive into advanced physics, math, and technology. The founders, of course, are physics and math experts. Ryan Nurmela taught entry-level physics as a lecturer at California State University, San Francisco and [...]
Children of immigrants took 70 percent of the finalist slots in the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search Competition, an original-research competition for high school seniors. According to LiveScience.com, only 12% of Americans are foreign born, so statistically, “one would expect only one child of an Indian (or Chinese) immigrant parent every two and a half years [...]
Posted in Biology, Chemistry, Culture, Diversity, Eclectic Homeschooling, Physics, Science, social change, technology Tags: culture, family values, immigrants, intel science award, Science, science award, success, tolerance Comments OffEnjoy this short video featuring Carl Sagan reading from Pale Blue Dot. Watch the video to regain perspective after a bad day. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space is a non-fiction book written by Carl Sagan in 1994. Carl passed away in 1996, but through his writing and his award-winning [...]
Saturday, September 24 is Free Museum Day. Most Smithsonian and Smithsonian-affiliated museums are free on this day. There are many reasons to take advantage of Free Museum Day, but here are our top ten: Expand your family’s interests. Visit a museum that you wouldn’t normally visit. Seek to find possible new interests. Engage with learning. [...]
Posted in Activities, Eclectic Homeschooling, History, Interdisciplinary, Just for Fun, Learning Methods, Science Tags: aquarium, Art, Free museum day, history, MOSI, Museum, natural science, Smithsonian 2 Comments »
