Do you think Elmo and Big Bird know math? Either they do or they are willing to learn. Which is why the Obama White House is recruiting them to popularize Science and Mathematics in the country.
According to newspaper reports, the campaign has been named Educate to Innovate and will focus on outside-the-classroom activities. Game programmers, scientists, business houses and not-for-profit groups will be asked to donate money, time and effort to make programs for middle and high-school students.
Examples of what you can expect:
[1] Discovery Communications will telecast ed snippets for middle school students for two hours (3 to 5 pm, Monday through Friday) on its Science Channel (cable network) for middle school students.
[2] Science and Engineering centres will send volunteers to work with teachers till National Lab Day. The Jack D. Hidary foundation, working with the National Science Teachers Association, the MacArthur Foundation and the American Chemical Society has created a website, nationallabday.org. It matches scientists willing to volunteer their time to teachers with classroom science projects.
[3] The MacArthur Foundation and tech outfits will hold contests to develop video games that teach science and math.
[4] Science ed has to start early, right? So Sesame Street will do programs with science content for two years.
[5] A website, connectamillionminds.com, set up by Time Warner Cable, will provide a searchable directory of local science activities.
[6] Remember Sally Ride, the first American woman in space? She, Craig R. Barrett, a former chairman of Intel and Ursula M. Burns, CE of Xerox, will speak to corporates and philanthropists to promote science.
All this will add to the Race to the Top initiative of the White House. The Race to the Top rules give extra points – and stimulus funds – to applications that emphasize science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEM subjects.
Here are two ideas for making science “cool to learn”. One is recording birdsong in the area around the school and comparing it with those recorded across the country. This is field science.
The other is to tap into kids’ interest in video games: Sony is expected to donate 1,000 PlayStation 3 game consoles and copies of the game LittleBigPlanet to libraries and community organizations in low-income areas.
To win prizes, programmers must create new levels in LittleBigPlanet that incorporate science and math. Or create new ones. The total prize money is $300,000. The games will be distributed free.
Will all this work? The record for from-the-outside efforts, sadly, has not been good. How do we make this work? By going back to the basics.
Tangible results can be seen only from excellent classroom teaching. All of us have favorite teachers whom we remember for “creating interest in us for math/English/science. There are records to prove that.
We don’t say, “Oh, I watched this cable channel and that’s how I’m a scientist today.” Outside efforts complement classroom ones. So can we start by improving/supplementing what goes on in classrooms?
