Of Interest...

NASA's 2006 Explorer Schools Sustainability Conference, July 5-9

2006 Explorer Schools Sustainability Conference
Invitations to participate in NASA's 2006 Explorer Schools Sustainability Conference, July 5-9, 2006 in Huntsville, AL, have recently been sent out. This event will allow the 2004 NES teams to develop strategies to continue and strengthen the process of change initiated as a result of becoming a NASA Explorer School. It also affords an opportunity for state coalition representatives to get to know the NES teams from their state and to advise and inform planning for sustainable improvement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The registration deadline is Friday, May 26.

NES teams from 50 schools in 34 states will learn about developing partnerships with business and state and local agencies to continue their efforts to transform and enhance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics instruction. NASA Explorer Schools represent an investment by NASA in the states and communities where they are located. The work begun to assist these schools need not end with the Explorer Schools program. The NES experience can be used as a catalyst for developing a process of continuous improvement. Also, input and guidance from state coalitions has contributed to improvements in the Explorer Schools program.

NASSMC's NES Partnerships for Sustainability program facilitates assistance by state business, education, policy coalitions to the NES participating schools in the state. Eighteen such formal partnerships have been funded by NASSMC thus far and a new RFP will be issued soon. Partnerships between NASA, the Explorer Schools and the state coalitions have been designed to help participating schools capitalize on the work already begun and to continue to improve.

Along with the serious work of the sustainability conference there is also an opportunity for you or your representative to enjoy a unique Space Camp or Aviation Challenge experience. All travel, meals, and expenses are covered by the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Please save the date and make plans for yourself or your designated representative to attend. Please contact Jessica Venable (jvenable@nassmc.org) or Jim McMurtray (jmcmurtray@nassmc.org) for more information about the agenda and registration procedures.

NASA Announces New 2006 Explorer Schools

NASA welcomed 26 new NASA Explorer Schools on Friday in a partnership to inspire students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Selected schools are eligible to receive up to $17,500 during the three-year partnership to help buy technology tools. The program also provides educators and students with content-specific activities that can be used in many local and state curricula to excite students about science and mathematics.

States with 2006 NASA Explorer Schools are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia. The Virgin Islands also have a 2006 NASA Explorer School.

A full listing of the 2006 schools is available here: www.explorerschools.nasa.gov/portal/site/nes. Go to "School Teams" tab and select "2006 Team Directory."

Show Your Coalition's Affiliation with NASSMC

Consider showing your coalition's affiliation with NASSMC by displaying this special version of the NASSMC logo and linking it to the NASSMC home page at www.nassmc.org. Doing this increases NASSMC's visibility, which allows us to serve you, our member coalitions, better. You can download the logo from this bulletin article or the member coalitions page (www.nassmc.org/coalitions.html). You may also contact Jane George (jgeorge@nassmc.org) for a copy.

NASA Requesting Proposals for Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology (MUST) Project

NASA's Office of Education Minority University Research and Education Program is requesting proposals for an agency cooperative agreement notice, Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology (MUST) project.

NASA invites proposals from minority serving institutions, which include historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities and non-profit organizations that serve underrepresented students. Partnerships among these organizations are encouraged to apply.

The MUST project is focused on engaging students from underserved and underrepresented groups to enter science and technology academic programs and later the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce. The MUST project encourages universities to recruit undergraduate students with aptitude and interest in science and technology fields that sustain NASA's projected workforce requirements.

NASA expects to award one cooperative agreement under this notice. The maximum annual value of this award to an individual minority serving institution or nonprofit organization is $1.75 million, with a total possible performance period of three years.

Access the solicitation at: nspires.nasaprs.com

NASSMC NBS Online Forum Now Open

The NASSMC NBS Online Forum opened in April with an article referring to a recent paper by John D. Sterman (MIT Sloan School of Management) in the American Journal of Public Health. It will resonate strongly with veterans of the long struggle for STEM education reform. Reader comments are invited.

The NASSMC NBS Online Forum is a new feature of the NASSMC Briefing Service. The Online Forum publishes commentary from the leaders of NASSMC's member coalitions or from invited contributors. Commentary, opinions, or editorials related to particular NASSMC briefs - or to key national issues - will be posted with notice to NBS subscribers.

How to submit an article for publication.

How to comment.

Go to the NASSMC NBS Online Forum.

Education Week's Technology Counts 2006: The Information Edge

Education Week has released Technology Counts 2006: The Information Edge: Using Data to Accelerate Achievement, a new report from Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center.

This ninth annual report on the state of school technology focuses on how well states and school districts are harnessing vast amounts of new student information to improve learning. In addition, it grades all 50 states and the District of Columbia on school technology and includes new online-only State Technology Reports for each state.

Technology Counts 2006 and the State Technology Reports are available online at www.edweek.org/techcounts06.

National LASER K8 Science Education Strategic Planning Institute, July 9-14

The Institute is designed to guide school districts through the process of developing tailored strategic plans for initiating and implementing an effective inquiry-centered science program. This is an important opportunity, particularly in light of the looming No Child Left Behind deadline for testing children's science knowledge.

The Institute is designed to help school districts meet high-stakes assessment goals and guide students toward becoming science-literate citizens and productive workers in an increasingly complex world.

For more information, please visit the NSRC Website, or contact LASER program assistant Andres de la Roche at 202-633-2960 or delarochea@si.edu.

Download the brochure: www.nsrconline.org/pdf/06_SPI_Broch.pdf

Resources, Reports, Events, and Opportunities

+ GrantSeeker
The GrantSeeker page has been updated with new opportunities. NASSMC's GrantSeeker service can help you identify both federal and private funding opportunities exclusively designed to meet the needs of member coalitions. Thanks to a recent expansion, NASSMC now has access to information on over 300,000 public and private sponsoring agencies, including program announcements and guidelines, application materials, the latest updates and deadlines, awards lists, and funded proposals.
www.nassmc.org/grant_seeker/gsintro.html

+ NSF Awards $1.8 Million to Study High-School Advanced Placement Work in Mathematics and Science
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $1.8 million grant to the College Board to redesign Advanced Placement Program (AP) courses in biology, chemistry, physics and environmental science. The funds will be used to develop a process for making ongoing changes in the courses and exams to incorporate the latest science developments and leverage best practices in science teaching.
www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=106929&org=NSF&from=news

+ SECME 2006 Summer Institute, July 7-16
The SECME Summer Institute is designed to provide an opportunity for K-16 educators, administrators, parents, and students to receive innovative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) professional development. The 2006 Summer Institute will be held at the University of South Florida.
www.secme.org

+ 2006 Business Education Network Summit, October 4-6, Dallas
The Business Education Network (BEN) is a national public-private network dedicated to revitalizing the country's public education system to promote student achievement in the areas and subjects that are important to the 21st century economy. Participants at the BEN Summit examined how business-education partnerships can promote more effective school systems that prepare the nation's youth to be productive in higher education and the workplace. BEN is an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Competitiveness in math and science, as well as technology, is critical for the future of the U.S. workforce and to the nation's capacity to conduct research and development, innovate, and excel in manufacturing, IT, bio-technology, pharmaceutical, and other industries. BEN is committed to identifying and sharing information about promising math and science programs at the local, state, and national levels.
www.businesseducationnetwork.com/bclc/ben/default

+ IdeaFestival™, Louisville, Kentucky, October 12-14, 2006
The IdeaFestival is a high energy event that brings together people with diverse backgrounds, knowledge and perspectives to explore innovations and cutting-edge ideas emerging from and at the intersections of different fields. The Festival provides a unique stage to discuss cross-cutting ideas as well as the strategic tools necessary to integrate and apply this knowledge in the design of new strategies, products, and creative endeavors. IdeaFestival sponsor, the Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation, is a NASSMC member coalition.
www.ideafestival.com/

+ Raytheon's MathMovesU Website
The goal of MathMovesU is to help turn around the image of math for America's middle school students. The program is designed to communicate with today's pre-teenagers on their terms, via the Internet site, and through celebrities. Raytheon will also provide a $1 million MathMovesU grant and scholarship program this year to students, teachers and schools. The site was inspired by the fact that American eighth grade students rank 15th in an international study of math achievement, and by the time they graduate high school, they score near the bottom of all industrialized nations. Less than one-third of eighth-graders reached a level of proficiency, or higher, in math. Yet the number of jobs requiring math and science is soaring four times faster than overall job growth.
www.mathmovesu.com/

+ Science and Engineering Indictors 2006
Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) is first and foremost a volume of record comprising the major high quality quantitative data on the U.S. and international science and engineering enterprise. SEI is factual and policy-neutral. It does not offer policy options and it does not make policy recommendations. SEI employs a variety of presentational styles--tables, figures, narrative text, bulleted text, web-based links, highlights, introductions, conclusions, reference lists--to make the data accessible to readers with different information needs and different information processing preferences.
www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/front/about.htm

+ Announcing SchoolBizMatch
Making science and mathematics education its priority, a web-based service matching the business community with local schools and school districts is coming soon. With a pilot in Northern Virginia, soon the service found at SchoolBizMatch's website will be national. "We've got to do what it takes to put more energy into the system. Students can reach higher levels of achievement and be enthused about their work if we unlock their potential. By showing youth the relevance of their work through private sector involvement, we can encourage high school retention and postsecondary education," states Robyn J. Hickey, Founder of SchoolBizMatch. "With 75% of college-age students not completing their baccalaureate, we must convince young people we care about their futures," she emphasizes.
www.schoolbizmatch.com

Of Interest...

CALIPSO animation still image. Credit: NASA

+ NASA launches satellites for weather, climate, air quality studies: NASA's CloudSat and CALIPSO were launched April 28 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on missions to reveal the inner secrets of clouds and aerosols, tiny particles suspended in the air. CloudSat's Cloud-Profiling Radar is more than 1,000 times more sensitive than typical weather radar. It can detect clouds and distinguish between cloud particles and precipitation. CALIPSO's mission isto probe the vertical structure and properties of thin clouds and aerosols all over the globe.
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cloudsat/main/index.html
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/calipso/main/index.html

+ Evolution occurs faster at the equator: Plants and animals living in warm, tropical climates evolve faster than those living in more temperate zones, a new study suggests. The finding, detailed in the May 2 issue of the journal for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help explain why rainforests have such rich biodiversity compared to other parts of the planet.
www.livescience.com/animalworld/060501_tropics_evo.html

+ NASA testing prototype software for future spaceflight: Software that astronauts could use during spaceflight and in future moon habitats is being tested by NASA in Utah's southeast desert from April 23 to May 7, 2006. The research is being conducted at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station, and involves field-testing a computer network to monitor space power systems. The network uses the same kind of intelligent software that also may assist astronauts to conduct planetary exploration with robotic systems.
astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/news/expandnews.cfm?id=10520

North Sea fossil Image: Jorn Harald Hurum

+ North Sea fossil is deepest dino: The first dinosaur fossil discovered in Norway is also the deepest one that has been found anywhere in the world. The 195-210-million-year-old specimen was found 2.3km (1.4 miles) below the floor of the North Sea by an offshore oil drilling platform. Norwegian palaeontologist Jorn Harald Hurum, from the University of Oslo, identified the fossil as the knucklebone of a plateosaur.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4950540.stm

+ Humans suspects in ancient horse extinction: Humans are back in the frame as suspects in the extinction of ancient horses in Alaska thousands of years ago. Previous dating of the youngest fossils indicates the horses disappeared about 500 years before the arrival of humans from Asia. But a new statistical analysis of the fossil dates suggests the animals actually went extinct a few hundred years after humans turned up. The end of the Pleistocene epoch saw extinctions of many large animals, including mammoths and caballoid horses in North America and elsewhere. Exactly what caused some these extinctions remains open for debate. But experts consider climate change and human hunting two of the most probable explanations.
www.newscientist.com/article/dn9091-humans-back-in-frame-for-ancient-horse-extinction.html

+ High technology conquers pot holes: Instead of wrinkles, when a highway ages you start to see cracks and potholes. While they may feel like bumps in the road, some of them can do serious damage to your car. Kelvin Wang, a civil engineer at the University of Arkansas, researches highway cracking and other types of road damage. He says, "Cracked pavement can deteriorate real fast into pavement with a lot of potholes, and that can lead into further deterioration to total failure."
discover.com/web-exclusives/pot-holes/

+ Letters in all writing systems traced back to nature: The shapes of letters in all languages are derived from common forms in nature, according to a new hypothesis. The idea, in some ways seemingly obvious and innately human, arose however from a study of how robots see the world. Robots employ object recognition technology to navigate a room by recognizing contours. A corner is seen as a "Y," for example, and a wall is recognized by the L-shape it makes where it meets the floor. "It struck me that these junctions are typically named with letters, such as 'L,' 'T,' 'Y,' 'K,' and 'X,' and that it may not be a coincidence that the shapes of these letters look like the things they really are in nature," said Mark Changizi, a theoretical neurobiologist at the California Institute of Technology.
www.livescience.com/othernews/060425_letter_shapes.html

Water molecules animated. Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation

+ NSF special report: The chemistry of water: Water may be one of the most familiar substances on the planet, but it certainly isn’t ordinary. In fact, water’s unique chemical properties make it so complicated that even after decades of research, scientists still have much to learn about this remarkable and versatile substance. Water simply doesn’t behave like other liquids.
www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/water/index_low.jsp

+ Robotic tentacles get to grips with tricky objects: Robotic "tentacles" that can grasp and grapple with a wide variety of objects have been developed by US researchers. Most robots rely on mechanical gripping jaws that have difficulty grabbing large or irregularly shaped objects. Replacing these with tentacle-like manipulators could make robots more nimble and flexible, say the scientists. The tentacle-like manipulators, known as "Octarms", resemble an octopus's limb or an elephant's trunk. They were developed through a project called OCTOR (sOft robotiC manipulaTORs), which involves several US universities and is funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9124-robotic-tentacles-get-to-grips-with-tricky-objects.html

+ Pacific and Atlantic oceans merged earlier than previously believed: The Pacific and Atlantic oceans were separated by a giant landmass once, but then a chink formed in this supercontinent and their waters intermingled. New fossil dating reveals that this event occurred about 41 million years ago, millions of years earlier than some scientists had estimated.
www.livescience.com/environment/060420_drake_passage.html