Change the Equation Blog

Monday, November 26, 2012 - 13:13

A Kansas superintendent's doctoral research further confirms a trend CTEq's Vital Signs saw earlier this year: Time for science, particularly in elementary school, is declining dramatically.

George Griffiths, the super of a western Kansas district, polled 900 teachers across five Midwestern states, and found that, on average, teachers have cut between 30 and 60 minutes of science instruction weekly. In fact, one in five teachers reported giving students grades in science but not even teaching or testing the subject.

His analysis took it a step further and uncovered the rationale, which should come as no surprise: More than 55 percent of teachers said that pressure to increase math and reading scores on high-stakes state tests, had led to the change in focus.

The narrow scope, as we know, is ultimately harmful to students: Many are choosing not to pursue STEM, despite the fact that an increasing number of jobs rely on science and math education.

It's time to start re-integrating science into both accountability frameworks and schools. States like Texas, which has long had science as part of its accountability, has seen little decrease in time for science, according to our analysis. Keeping students and schools focused on science will keep them focused on the future.

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iONFuture helps students see the possibilities in STEM

Monday, November 19, 2012 - 17:07

Today Change the Equation is proud to announce the launch of iONFuture, our new STEM-focused online learning games. The free suite of games, at ionfuture.org, is geared toward middle schoolers and early high schoolers and helps them discover the wide world of STEM and determine what STEM career path might be just right for them.

The three games include:

STEM Is Everwhere, where students can explore the impact people with STEM jobs have on everything around them;

STEM Career Matchmaker, which allows students to determine which STEM career best fits their interests, and

STEM Career Quest, which lets students follow real-life paths to different careers that use STEM. We based this game on the input of hundreds of STEM professionals.

We are incredibly proud of these games and the impact they can have on young teens! Ensuring that students are given the exposure to develop an interest is vital to getting them college- and career-ready. Check out the trailer below to learn more about the games, and tell your favorite tween to check out the games.

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Can Schools Use Hip Hop to Teach Science?

Monday, November 19, 2012 - 09:16

Can schools use hip hop to teach science? Purists might blanch at the thought, but a group of schools in New York City are set to give it a try. Hip hop, say the project’s leaders, can create an ideal climate for learning.

Dr. Chris Emden from Columbia’s Teachers College is working with famed rapper GZA to launch the project in 10 schools. For Dr. Emden, the rapper’s “cypher” is the perfect “learning moment.” Participants stand in a circle and riff on each other’s lines in a sustained creative give and take.

GZA, who is known for weaving esoteric references to subjects like chess and philosophy into his songs, is working on a new album, “Dark Matter,” which takes science as its inspiration. GZA, who met with physicists from MIT and Harvard as he planned the album, sees himself as a “popularizer of science.”

It’s too soon to know what the results of the project will be. If it’s a resounding success, science teachers from around the country might want to start working on their rhythm and flow.

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STEM the big winner for i3 grants

Thursday, November 15, 2012 - 11:34

Earlier this week the Department of Education announced their winners for the Investing in Innovation (i3) grants, and STEM came out on top. The grants, which helps innovative programs expand their ipmact, grew out of the 2009 stimulus package. Programs can win either a "development" grant, worth up to $3 million, or a "validation" grant, worth up to $15 million. Of the 20 programs awarded one of the two grants, 10 made an impact on technology education, one of five "priority" categories. Eric Robelin has a nice write-up of the STEM-focused winners over on EdWeek. The winning programs focus on many different facets of STEM education, from professional development to early math intervention to igniting interest through expert mentorships.

It goes without saying that innovation is vital to STEM education, as we work to find new ways to capture students' interest in this critical field. We're happy to see that represented by the Department of Education, and look forward to seeing what emerges from these programs.

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We'll put our bets on math

Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - 11:50

Besides President Barack Obama, there was another winner last night.

Math.

Yes, math. While statistical strategy and projection has long been a part of politics -- the Gallup Organization was founded in 1935, when FDR was president, and Kennedy may have lost the popular vote but won electorally in 1960 -- this perhaps was the year that data and numbers moved from an art to a science. Over at the New York Times, statistician Nate Silver number-crunched his way to extremely accurate predictions of how the electoral and popular votes would pan out, proving his near-perfect prognostications in 2008 were more than a fluke. (Currently -- Florida has yet to be called -- he called every state right and has the popular vote within tenths of a percentage.)

But what makes this year different than any years past is the way in which trust in the numbers overtook faith in the gut. Silver uses his own statistical model that weights polling and accounts for other indicators, built from his sabermetrics experience. And while Silver wasn't the only statistician declaring it over, he certainly was the most recognizable and accessible, having been giving a New York Times platform.

Silver garnered a great deal of criticism when he stuck by his steady analysis as pundits reacted to the news cycle and declared the race too close to call, finally causing a minor controversy when he bet Joe Scarborough $2,000 that Obama would win. Past polls often tried to take into account soft variables like enthusiasm or likelihood of voting, and in October those national polls showed the race careening into a nailbiter. Silver focused on reams of data and regression analysis and through October consistently put Obama's chances of reelection as greater than three in four.

Beyond the prognostication, the Obama campaign used a similar emphasis on data mining to vote-target its way to victory. According to Time, thousands of data points gathered from the 2008 campaign coalesced to form the foundation of a tight, strategic search for voters. Who would've known, for instance, that women between the ages of 40-49 on the West Coast, who were extremely attracted to George Clooney, would most readily open their wallets for fundraising? Yep, me neither. But Obama's data-mining team figured it out from the data.

So what's next? Although most pollsters, pundits, campaign analyasts and statisticians are hopefully getting some much-needed rest today, it certainly seems like data analysis will -- and should -- play a greater role in campaigning and prognosticating. Think sabermetrics in baseball, or the Freakonomics phenomenon. As a country we're getting better, and surer, at understanding how the numbers construct a compelling political narrative, at interpreting real results through the noise of all the data we've collected over the past two dozen years. Don't be surprised if data-driven analysis plays a greater role in reporting in the future. Jury's still out on whether we'll see a movie like Moneyball come out of this year's election, but if we were Nate Silver, we'd put pretty heavy odds on statistical analysis being here to stay.

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Huzzah! Eight more STEM programs make it into STEMworks

Tuesday, November 6, 2012 - 14:18

Change the Equation just announced that eight more first-rate programs have made it into STEMworks, our searchable database of programs that deepen young people's learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Programs that applied to STEMworks this time around faced stiff odds: Fewer than one in three made it in. Programs have to measure up to CTEq's Design Principles for Effective STEM Philanthropy to clear the bar.

Do you want to get your own program into STEMworks? Act fast! Our last deadline for submissions is November 15th. Click here to learn more.

Here are the eight new programs:

Engaging Youth through Engineering (EYE) Middle Grades Modules

EYE aims to make K-12 math and science relevant. It inspires and prepares elementary and middle school students to take the courses they need to succeed in the high-tech aerospace, shipbuilding and other industries located in and around Mobile, Alabama. The EYE Middle Grades Modules features an engineering design challenge to engage students in rigorous math and science content.

High-Tech High Heels Physics Camps

High-Tech High Heels Physics Camps are a two-week summer day camps that prepare girls for their first high school physics course. The camps reinforce basic math skills, offer hands-on labs, provide close interaction with instructors, foster an atmosphere of collaboration and teamwork, and expose girls to STEM careers through female role models.

Iridescent

Iridescent uses two untapped resources, engineers and parents, to address the STEM achievement gap. Engineers receive training to help parents become successful participants, investors and leaders of the Family Science Program.

Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn

Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn turns teenagers into STEM teachers. The program hires 25-35 youth teachers each year, most of whom are youth of color, teaches them STEM content, guides them through hands-on STEM projects, and then helps them use what they've learned to teach elementary and middle school youth in summer programs.

Mathematics Learning Community

The Regional Science Resource Center (RSRC) has developed Mathematics Learning Community (MLC) professional development materials to help teachers and schools addreses the specific problems that hinder student progress in math. The materials help teachers probe student thinking by learning how to examine student work and then better diagnose and target students’ learning needs.

National Academy Foundation (NAF)

The National Academy Foundation (NAF) sustains a national network of career academies to support the development of America's youth. Over the past three decades, NAF has demonstrated that career-based, small learning communities located in comprehensive public high schools can improve high school student performance and results.

Ten80 Student Racing Challenge

The Ten80 Student Racing Challenge prompts middle and high school students to uto create products and work together in ways that mirror the work of professional motorsports teams, engineers and green transportation designers. It includes a national competition league and a supplementary project-based classroom curriculum created by educators, engineers and industry partners over the last decade. Students in classes and clubs use electric radio controlled (RC) cars to create products and work together in ways that parallel the arduous preparation of NASCAR teams in the weeks, months and years leading up to each race.

The EAST Initiative

The EAST (Environmental and Spatial Technology) Initiative gets students to design and carry out their own service projects using teamwork and cutting-edge technology. EAST classrooms are equipped with state-of-the-art workstations, servers, software and accessories, including GPS/GIS mapping tools, architectural and CAD design software, 3D animation suites, virtual reality development and more. Students identify problems in their local communities and then use these tools to develop solutions, collaborating with civic and other groups in the process.

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Sandy Presents a Chance for STEM

Monday, November 5, 2012 - 12:46

As recovery efforts continue in New York, New Jersey, and other areas seriously affected by Hurricane Sandy last week, many are already turning their eyes toward rebuilding efforts. And when rebuilding, STEM can -- and should -- play a key role in building smarter and stronger structures, in preparation for the next storm.

Sandy already will likely be one of the five costliest storms in history, and so far, more than 100 people have lost their lives. A week later the subway system in New York is still not at full capacity, many are still without power, and dozens of schools are too damaged to re-open quite yet.

As we look forward, though, we know that we can probably anticipate a similar storm in the not-so-distant future. This presents an opportunity for STEM innovation as we rebuild the Atlantic coast and New York City to ensure that the damage isn't replicated.

For instance, take New York's subway and power grids, both of which were crippled in the wake of the storm, both of which began over 100 years ago -- well before we consider New York vulnerable to a storm like Sandy, and well before we had the technology to prepare for a Sandy. Simply restoring power or pumping out flooded tunnels will work in the short term, but engineers and energy scientists can also be called upon to devise stronger systems that are more likely to withstand increased storm activity. The same can be said of coastal levees, home-construction codes and practices, and city planning.

The potential damage from a Sandy-type storm has long been predicted. Now that it's happened once, both New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have spoken up about the need to plan for the new reality. Sandy has presented us with an opportunity to use STEM to invest strategically in our future. Let's not waste it.

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Women Still Face Pay Gap

Thursday, November 1, 2012 - 16:36

Last month, an equal pay question in the second presidential debate surprised, and angered, some. But a report released last week by the American Association of University Women shows why the question still has merit.

It's well cited that overall, women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men make. But AAUW toke the analysis a step further, controlling for most factors cited in the wage gap -- children, career field, experience level -- by looking only at men and women one year out of college, and comparing within fields. What they found was thateven with the same amount of experience and in the same field, women earn only 82 percent of what men earn. Translated into dollars, a woman graduating with a business degree from the same school as a male classmate can expect to earn, on average, $8,000 less her first year working than that classmate.

In STEM, findings like this are especially important. While what field any college student ultimately chooses is the result of a knot of intersecting factors -- personal interest, self-assessments of aptitude, encourage, opportunity -- STEM majors and fields are traditionally over-represented by men. AAUW takes this fact into their analysis, breaking down traditionally "male" and "female" occupations; unsurprisingly, "male" occupations out-earn "female" occupations, and men typically pursue "male" occupations while women pursue "female" occupations. Some argue -- and they have a point -- that personal choice can, and should, play a heavy role in career choice. If a young woman wants to major in elementary education or political science instead of physics or electrical engineering, nobody should stop her, or make her change majors, simply because she's done well in math or science.

But when studies also show that gender discrimination still exists at the highest echelons of scientific research, and that young girls begin believing that math is "for boys" as early as second grade, more than simply personal choice is at play. The AAUW study demonstrates this by highlighting the discrepancy in pay. It's time that we work toward remedying the pay gap, as well as the conditions that lead to the pay gap. Given the shortage we're facing in STEM, it can only work in everyone's favor.

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The Science of Sandy

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - 14:03

Over the past few days, the East Coast has been battered by Sandy, a storm that is already breaking records. The damage has yet to be fully tallied, but, given the extensive damage to New York City alone, will likely be in the billions.

One question many are asking is how Sandy happened. After all, by the time it made landfall in New Jersey, the storm didn't even qualify as a hurricane. Throughout its trip up the coastline, the storm was only a Category One hurricane, the weakest on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which NOAA uses to rank a storm's strength and potential for damage. For comparison, Katrina struck New Orleans as a Category Three, and Andrew hit Miami as a Category Five.

Sandy, however, was not an ordinary Category One storm. Sandy's unusual strength up the coast was due to a combination of factors: As it traveled north, Sandy was energized by a low-pressure stream, which carried the storm even farther; a pressure-blocking system over Greenland pushed it westward into the U.S. instead of letting it drift back into the ocean.

While Sandy was the result of several weather phenomena aligning, it is likely that we can expect more storms as the climate begins to change more quickly. Although hurricanes hit New York as early as 1821, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo perhaps put it most concisely when he remarked that larger storms appear to be a "new reality." It's a prime time for scientists and engineers to come forward and come together to develop systems to help us become more prepared for future storms.

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CANCELLED: CTEq's Oct 30 STEM Salon

Monday, October 29, 2012 - 10:45

We regret that we have to cancel our October 30th STEM Salon on the implications of the coming election for STEM learning. With Frankenstorm bearing down on us, the Salon is simply impossible. The best laid plans...

Please stay tuned for future STEM Salons. You can check out our past Salons here: http://changetheequation.org/stem-salons.

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Engaging Youth through Engineering (EYE) Middle Grades Modules

High-Tech High Heels Physics Camps

Iridescent

Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn

Mathematics Learning Community

National Academy Foundation (NAF)

Ten80 Student Racing Challenge

The EAST Initiative

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