STEM

NOW — Summer 2019

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 06:00:00 +0000

NOW — Summer 2019 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/01/2019 - 00:00

If it’s icky, slimy or smelly, it’s fair game.

“Grossology,” a five-day CU Boulder camp for elementary school-age children, explores all things “gross” through experiments with slippery, messy things — including dissected animal organs — and lessons in natural happenings, such as how cavities form and what causes skunks’ odor.

The camp is part of CU Science �鶹��Ƶy, a program founded in 1983 to offer STEM-focused K-12 summer camps, after-school programs and teacher trainings.

Photo by Glenn Asakawa

If it’s icky, slimy or smelly, it’s fair game.

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Campus News Briefs — Fall 2018

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Campus News Briefs — Fall 2018 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/15/2018 - 00:00

Tuscan Vernacular

1917

Year Charles Klauder, who developed CU Boulder’s “Tuscan vernacular” architectural style, first visited campus

CU buildings designed

Number built

1921

First (Hellems)

1947

Last (McKenna Languages, after Klauder's death)

New edition of Body & Soul, book about CU Boulder's architecture

Good News for Early Risers

Early risers may be less prone to depression, according to one of the largest studies yet to explore the link between sleep-wake preference and mood disorders.

Researchers at CU Boulder and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston looked at sleep-wake preferences and depression rates for 32,000 female nurses and found that early birds were 12 to 27 percent less likely to develop depression.

So: Stop staying up late to watch Netflix. Doctor’s orders.

For details of the study, visit CU Boulder Today

Heard Around Campus

Love them, comfort them, calm them down, make them feel safe and secure and let them know you care for them.”

— CU emeritus professor Marc Beckoff, author of Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do, on helping pets through grief, in the Huffington Post.

Barbie’s Got Brains

Casey Fiesler is taking down stereotypes — one Barbie at a time.

The CU assistant professor of information science won notice in 2014 after critiquing Mattel’s Barbie for its representation of women in technology. The company responded with a job offer.

Fiesler contributed to Mattel's new book Code Camp with Barbie and Friends, which teaches children to code and encourages girls and women to pursue careers in STEM. The book was recently released along with a new doll, Robotics Engineer Barbie.

Good news for early risers, Robotics Engineer Barbie and facts about CU's architecture.

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Fall 2018

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Class Act

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Class Act Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/01/2012 - 00:00

Kenna Bruner

CU-Boulder student David Rahmani works with children at Columbine Elementary School in Boulder as part of his Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education.

In an after-school class of budding scientists, planting vegetable seeds becomes a lesson in how plants grow, cleverly disguised as an afternoon of playing in the dirt.

Amid colorful hand-drawn posters announcing that Franklin, the school’s pet turtle, is missing, 15 five- to eight-year-olds crowd around a table cluttered with seed packets, bags of soil and three-inch cups in the cafeteria at Columbine Elementary School in Boulder.

After-school teaching assistant David Rahmani places trays of planted seeds in a sunny window overlooking the school playground, so students can follow the plants’ progress.

Responding to concerns that American students lack adequate skills to compete in a technologically complex global economy, Rahmani is part of a growing number of CU-Boulder students who are putting a fresh face on how math and science classes are taught on and off campus. As a national leader in STEM education, the university’s effort involves more than 45 programs in 14 departments.

And it is beginning to transform the way college undergraduates and graduates are taught, boosting the number of students pursuing teaching careers, improving STEM education in K-12 classes and expanding informal school-based educational programs.

For Rahmani, a 23-year-old graduate physics student, it means teaching once a week at Columbine and collaborating with colleagues to engage youngsters in science.

“Sometimes playing in the dirt is learning about the dirt, too,” Rahmani says. “It’s about getting students to make connections between their lives and the world around them in a scientific manner.”

Making these scientific connections can be elusive. Students in the United States rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to students in 30 industrialized countries. Even our top math students rank 25th out of 30 when compared to the best students around the globe. Top countries include China, Korea, Finland, Japan and Switzerland, according to a Programme for International Student Assessment study, says physics professor Noah Finkelstein who directs STEM education on campus.

For the United States to be an international leader addressing tough scientific and technological challenges, educators must do a better job of encouraging students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. This is why students-turned-teachers and after-school facilitators like Rahmani play a crucial role.

“The university is the focal point for helping shift the national dialogue about STEM education and to address key challenges,” says Finkelstein, noting the large-scale initiative has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of education.

Because of a five-year collaboration with the education school, arts and sciences college and the engineering and applied science college, the university has doubled the number of undergraduates in STEM-related majors who complete secondary math and science teacher certification, averaging more than 13 annually.

And while 13 may seem low, it underscores the challenges inherent in successfully recruiting students who are strong in science into teaching.

“There’s a great need for STEM teachers in K-12, but it’s challenging to attract STEM college students to become teachers because the pay differential compared to industry is so large,” says CU-Boulder assistant professor Jeremy Siek of electrical, computer and energy engineering who received an early career award from the National Science Foundation for effectively integrating research and education in his work.

To build success, more than 440 students have participated as learning assistants, helping improve introductory courses in 10 departments from physics to astrophysical and planetary sciences since the program began in 2003.

Rahmani credits CU-Boulder’s initiatives for helping transform how math and science are taught so the excitement of deep understanding is accessible to students of all ages.

“I joke about teaching freshman physics to kindergartners,” says Rahmani, “but if we get them excited about science now, we can build on that, so 10-15 years from now they’ll still be interested in science.”

No word yet on the whereabouts of Franklin the turtle, but perhaps a biology-savvy elementary student will help locate him.

Read more on STEM education at www.colorado.edu/istem.

Photo courtesy Casey A. Cass

Amid concerns about the country's shortage of workers in science and technology, CU Boulder is a leader in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education.

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In the Classroom with Pac-Man

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0000

In the Classroom with Pac-Man Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/01/2011 - 00:00

Staff

When Rod Falk’s middle school students create their own arcade classics like Frogger, Pac-Man and Space Invaders in his computer lab, they develop critical thinking skills.

And like Pac-Man and his pellets, they’re snapping the lessons up.

Falk, who teaches in La Veta, Colo., is among the 60-some middle and high school teachers who traveled to campus for the Scalable Game Design Summer Institute to learn video game design. The goal was to bring the skills to their classrooms and better engage students.

In its third year, the project brings leading research practices and findings in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines into K-12 learning settings. CU-Boulder is a leading STEM practitioner.

The skills students learn could be used to create simulations of virus outbreaks and the spread of forest fires to help them learn data analysis and statistics.

When Rod Falk’s middle school students create their own arcade classics like Frogger, Pac-Man and Space Invaders in his computer lab, they develop critical thinking skills.

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DiStefano Visits White House to Stem Shortage

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:00:00 +0000

DiStefano Visits White House to Stem Shortage Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/01/2010 - 00:00

CU-Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano, third from right, meets with President Barak Obama during his Jan. 6 visit to the White House. Photo courtesy of the Associated Press.

Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano was front and center on Jan. 6 at the White House when leaders of four research universities representing 120 universities presented a letter to President Barack Obama pledging to address the national shortage of science and mathematics teachers.

The letter was signed by leaders of 79 public research universities or systems and pledged, among other things, to prepare an additional 7,500 teachers over the next five years. Thirty-nine institutions, including CU-Boulder, have pledged to at least double the number of science and mathematics teachers graduated by 2015.

“Working through [the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative], DiStefano says, “will enable our institutions to significantly impact science and mathematics education in our states and across the nation. It is a matter of security and global competitiveness.”

President Obama seconded the effort, saying he was pleased to expand the “Educate to Innovate” campaign and create new partnerships “that will help meet our goal of moving American students from the middle to the top of the pack . . . .”

CU-Boulder leaders say the university stands alone in the breadth of its integrated campuswide Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiatives that transform the way undergraduate courses are taught and favor the sciences and mathematics. The initiatives encourage professors to conduct leading research in STEM education and recruit the best math and science students into teaching.

Chancellor DiStefano was front and center on Jan. 6 at the White House when leaders of four research universities presented a letter to President Barack Obama pledging to address the national shortage of science and mathematics teachers.

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STEM

NOW — Summer 2019

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Campus News Briefs — Fall 2018

Tuscan Vernacular

Good News for Early Risers

Heard Around Campus

Barbie’s Got Brains

Related Articles

Class Act

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In the Classroom with Pac-Man

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DiStefano Visits White House to Stem Shortage

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