FCAT Science

Florida is fac­ing a crit­i­cal short­age of math and sci­ence teach­ers at the mid­dle and high school level. Florida plans on using Race to The Top funds to spur the edu­ca­tion of more of these  crit­i­cal instruc­tors, accord­ing to the Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. I’m hop­ing that the Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion seeks out qual­ity edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ences and long-term pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment for the math and sci­ence teach­ers that will be head­ing into Florida’s mid­dle and high school sci­ence class­rooms. Also, of impor­tance is the need for teach­ers trained in STEM edu­ca­tion prac­tices. To read Leslie Postal’s arti­cle in Novem­ber 28th, 2011 Orlando Sen­tinel see the fol­low­ing link.

Bio­med­ical Sci­ence Class is being offered at Mariner School in Lee County, Florida. The Bio­med­ical Class is part of the the first Project Lead the Way (PLTW)  Bio­med­ical Sci­encePro­gram. It’s the first PLTW class that Lee County has offered. Project Lead the Way is a nationally-approved method of increas­ing Sci­ence, Tech­nol­ogy, Engi­neer­ing, and Math (STEM) con­cepts and explo­rations within schools. STEM edu­ca­tion classes help to achieve the goals set forth in the Race to the Top grant pro­gram. Michelle Hell­man is the instruc­tor for the Bio­med­ical Sci­ence class at Mariner School. She com­pleted two weeks of inten­sive train­ing pro­vided by PLTW this past sum­mer to become cer­ti­fied to teach the class. Hell­man states that “she is more of a facil­i­ta­tor, she hardly lec­tures.” Stu­dents are in charge of most of their own research and labs. Project Lead the Way phi­los­o­phy and cur­ricu­lum encour­ages the devel­op­ment of problem-solving skills, crit­i­cal think­ing, cre­ative and inno­v­a­tive rea­son­ing, and a love for learn­ing. To read more about the Bio­med­ical Sci­ence class at Mariner check out the fol­low­ing arti­cle in News-Press.com  by Mae Yousif-Bashi. To find out more about Project Lead the Way pro­grams and teacher train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties check out the Project Lead the Way web­site.

A coali­tion of edu­ca­tors, sci­en­tists, engi­neers, and phil­an­thropies announced the launch­ing of National Lab Day. A new grass­roots ini­tia­tive designed to rein­vig­o­rate sci­ence and math edu­ca­tion in the nation’s schools and after-school pro­grams which will is hoped to ulti­mately lead to increased U.S. com­pet­i­tive­ness.
The goal of the ini­tia­tive is to improve the qual­ity of Sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing, and math (STEM) edu­ca­tion in Amer­ica. A col­lab­o­ra­tion between the gov­ern­ment and more than 200 public-and pri­vate sec­tor orga­ni­za­tions, National Lab Day will con­nect stu­dents in grades 6–12 to hands-on learn­ing expe­ri­ences and pro­mote tin­ker­ing in lab­o­ra­tory set­tings. National Lab Day is a New York-based edu­ca­tion orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to improv­ing sci­ence and math edu­ca­tion nation­wide. National Lab Day wel­comes new part­ner­ships and can be reached at info@nationallabday.org. For fur­ther details on the National Lab Day ini­tia­tive please see the fol­low­ing link to the National Lab Day Orga­ni­za­tion web­site. http://www.nationallabday.org/

Pres­i­dent Obama announced a $250 mil­lion public-private com­bi­na­tion effort to improve sci­ence and math­e­mat­ics instruc­tion. The goal of the ini­tia­tive is to help the United States com­pete in sci­ence and engi­neer­ing fields with global eco­nomic com­peti­tors. The fund­ing will pre­pare more than 10,000 new math and sci­ence teach­ers teach­ers over the next five years, and pro­vide on-the-job train­ing for an addi­tional 100,000 teach­ers in STEM fields. I am hop­ing that the state of Florida ben­e­fits from this inia­tive via pro­vid­ing addi­tional and much needed qual­ity hands-on pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment for math and sci­ence teach­ers. For fur­ther details on the ini­tia­tive see the arti­cle by Nick Ander­son, Wash­ing­ton Post Staff Writer in the fol­low­ing link “>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/06/AR2010010602063.html”>

 Novem­ber 23rd, Pres­i­dent Obama launched the “Edu­cate to Inno­vate” cam­paign. The goal of the nation­wide effort is to move Amer­i­can stu­dents from the mid­dle to the top in sci­ence and math achieve­ment over the next decade, over $260 mil­lion in public-private invest­ments have been made to help achieve this goal. Big name pub­lic and pri­vate part­ner­ships have come on board to help achieve this goal includ­ing: Time Warner Cable, Dis­cov­ery Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Sesame Street’s Early STEM Lit­er­acy Ini­tia­tive, The MacArthur Foun­da­tion, Sony Com­puter Enter­tain­ment Amer­ica, and numer­ous other cor­po­ra­tions. States have begun sub­mit­ting qual­i­fy­ing paper­work to state their inter­est in apply­ing for  “Race to the Top” funds. States receiv­ing Race to the Top funds will have to dra­mat­i­cally improve their schools and stu­dent achieve­ment in sci­ence and math. A major por­tion of the funds are expected to be used for pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment. For fur­ther details on the “Edu­cate to Inno­vate” cam­paign see the offi­cial White House Press release below.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-launches-educate-innovate-campaign-excellence-science-technology-en