The internet is getting a lot of attention these days- and a lot of money. An additional $12 million of government funds will go into the GENI project. The 12 million is coming from the National Science Foundation. However, what has been donated to GENI so far is small in comparison to the $350 million in government funds that GENI will need to officially start construction within the next five years.
Archive for July, 2008
GENI Project Receives Additional Funding
Posted by Sheri on July 31st, 2008 | No Comments »
Filed under Society, The National Interest | Tags: GENI project
Envirotech Tackles Literacy Challenges through Engineering
Posted by Administrator on July 30th, 2008 | No Comments »
Envirotech is a new program created by University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign engineers and Women in Engineering. It is based on the idea that student’s poor literacy skills create a lack of interest in STEM concepts.
“Proper understanding of scientific concepts frequently requires handling new vocabulary and written information. This presents a barrier to children with poor reading and language skills. As a result of these deficiencies, many students develop low self-confidence for information-intense subjects, and shy away from science and math despite strong interest in the underlying topics. International comparisons show U.S. students score lowest in language-intensive areas of science, e.g., biology.”
Envirotech creators make reading fun through environmental science. While students in the program are behind their peers in science, math and reading; they are very engaged in the the program. Envirotech allows students to make hands on connections to what they read, which keeps it interesting. The group also takes field trips, works with scientfic equitment, and talks to real environmental engineers.
You can read more about it in the article; You’re a fish…where would you rather live? posted in Engineering at Illinois News.
Filed under Education | Tags: Envirotech, science literacy
SMILE! There’s a new NSDL pathway
Posted by Administrator on July 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
If you are not familiar with The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) you probably should be. Created in 2000 by the National Science Foundation, this online library is free to use and provides exceptional resources for K-16 educators. Users can search the site and find not only text documents such as lesson plans and journal articles, but also images, video, audio, animations, software and datasets. NSDL is continually building on the site and has recently added a new pathway that will cater specifically to informal learning educators.
The new pathway, SMILE (The Science and Math Informal Learning Educators) will provide activities that fit with informal learning experiences and will be a useful resource for these educators. Across the country, organizations and especially museums are pulling their resources together to create curriculum that will supplement formal classroom learning experiences in STEM fields. The new site being created through NSF will combine these curriculum ideas into an easy searchable database, where participants can create, share, and rate informal STEM programs, lessons and demonstrations. SMILE is currently surveying museum professionals about their preferences for the new pathway.
Informal education differs from formal education in that it is not bound to learning standards and tests to measure performance. Informal educators are free to spend more time on a concept and take a more hands on approach then formal educators usually have the time or resources to.
Related: The NSDL engineering pathway, provided by the National Engineering Education Delivery System (NEEDS) and TeachEngineering, can be found here.
Filed under Education | Tags: Informal Education, NSDL, SMILE
How to Build an Electric Car Charging Infrastructure: Smart Grids, Fast Charging and Universal Access
Posted by Sheri on July 25th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
“Green studies are among the fastest-growing degree programs at some universities” (posted Yesterday Green Degrees Environmental Courses Signal a Shift in Learning) making the topic of electric cars one that should interest both students and professors. Engineers will most likely be behind designing and implementing the grid system that will power these cars. gas2.0 provides an idea about how that might look.
Filed under Future, How Things Work, Innovation, Society | Tags: electric cars, green engineering
ASEE President: Sarah A. Rajala
Posted by Administrator on July 24th, 2008 | No Comments »
ASEE newest board president, Sarah A. Rajala, addresses ASEE members and colleagues about its� work in promoting engineering and technology education excellence. You can find the President�s message on the ASEE website.
In 2009 Rajala noted the importance of ASEE�s efforts to unite members abroad and work internationally, as well as ASEE�s challenge to reach K-12 engineering education. She brought attention to the need for diversity and reminded members of ASEE�s pioneering efforts to help transform engineering education. She writes:
�During 2006-2007, ASEE engaged in a Year of Dialogue addressing how we can advance engineering and engineering technology education based on the collective wisdom and experience of its more than 13,000 members. This dialogue began with a plenary session at the 2006 Annual Convention and was followed by discussion at each of the twelve section meetings. These efforts provided the foundation for an NSF-funded project to create a blueprint for transforming engineering education through educational scholarship and to initiate substantive actions to advance the proposed recommendations. Over the next year a team of more than fifty ASEE members and educational leaders will develop draft recommendations and plans for converting these recommendations into actions. Public distribution of the draft report for feedback will begin in early 2009�
Through out her life, Rajala has sought to open up the field of engineering to women and she serves as a role model for female students as she continues to move into traditionally male dominated roles. More information about President Rajala and her past accomplishments can be found in ECE News on the NC State University website. Rajala is currently the department chair and dean at Mississippi State University.
Filed under Society | Tags: ASEE, women
Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education Act of 2008
Posted by Sheri on July 22nd, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Back in May Rep. Mike Honda and Sen. Barack Obama came together and presented the Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education Act of 2008 (full text). After federal funding for STEM fields has been increasingly cut over the last few years, such an act provides hope. Groups like the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the American Chemical Society have already come forward to show their support of the new policy effort. Now, other agencies are also standing up to back the legislation. One group The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) who also endorsed groups like “Project Lead the Way, FIRST Robotics, DoD STARBASE” has come out strongly behind the new STEM proposal. NDIA support makes it clear that efforts to improve STEM education are important to industry and other private sector companies. To quote the retired Air Force Lieutenant and current president and CEO of NDIA, General Larry Farrell, “The inability to hire a security-clearable, adequately educated work force of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians will be the single most economically crippling issue facing the US defense industrial base in the coming decades.” NDIA is urging House and Senate members to quickly act in supporting the bill.
Among some of the top goals of this bill would be to get states to adopt similar STEM education standards, currently standards are left to the state to decide and vary across the country. Moving to national STEM standards would ensure that children all across the United States are learning the same things in school. It would also allow standards and material to go through the federal President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy for review. A final goal of the bill is to target curriculum innovation by funding research that potentially can improve STEM education.
Related Links: NASA Announces 2008 Competitive Grant Programs Project Lead The Way
Filed under Education, Society, The National Interest | Tags: STEM legislation
Pop Culture and Engineering Intersect
Posted by Sheri on July 21st, 2008 | No Comments »
The new Film Wall.e released by Pixar in conjunction with Disney, succeeds in bringing attention to engineering education. The robot, Wall.e, creates discussion around current environmental concerns and technological innovation.
Could a robot like Wall.e someday exist?
Related Links: Robots and Beyond: Exploring Artificial Intelligence at MIT Robots of the Future Will Show Empathy, Be Good Listeners
Filed under Innovation, Society | Tags: robots, webcast
GENI Project
Posted by Sheri on July 18th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
If the internet is going to crash anytime in the future, then Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) project will be there to catch it. At least that is the hope among its’ leaders, a network of University professors and computer scientists in conjunction with the National Science Foundation and BBN Technologies. GENI provides an opportunity for researchers to contribute to the redesigning of the internet in the large scale experimental environment that it has created.
As envisioned, the GENI network will consist of two major components: a substrate that includes the physical networking components such as fiber links, forwarders, storage, process clusters, sensor fields, and wireless regions; and a software management framework. This configuration will allow researchers to run thousands of experiments simultaneously on various slices of the substrate without risk of adverse effects on other sections. Additionally, all GENI components will be programmable, vastly expanding the range and scope of possible experiments compared to today’s Internet, enabling experimental services and architectures to run continuously rather than only in reserved time slots, and allowing incremental adoption of new technologies. End users will be able to participate in and evaluate new services through seamless opt-in mechanisms. GENI’s design, architecture, and interfaces will provide unprecedented flexibility to incorporate new networking technologies and the ability to adapt dynamically.
At the other end, GENI is turning to social scientists and economic professors in the humanities, who know more about internet social behavior. The Chronical of Higher Education focused on this new effort recently:
Related: Researchers Rebuild Their Effort to Rebuild the Internet Three Wishes for a Future Internet? GENI Project Will Soon Be At Your Command Exploring Internet Alternatives: the GENI Project
Filed under Innovation, Research | Tags: GENI, internet, socail networking
Students Learn Technology and Science of Extreme Ocean Environments at Underwater Robot Competition
Posted by Sheri on July 17th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
At University of California San Diego’s (UCSD) Canyonview Aquatic Center, teams of students gathered for this year’s Marine Advanced Technology Education Center’s International Student ROV (remotely-operated vehicle) Competition. 650 Students from five different countries came together- including the U.S., Canada, China (Hong Kong), Scotland and Russia to compete. For the competition the students were require to design and build robots that would measure the temperature of an underwater vent (made out of PVC pipe) as well as capture “crabs” and collect “lava samples.” Students also presented posters and reports they had made to volunteer judges, who were made up of professional technologists and engineers in marine-related industries. Students compete in two classes, Explorer and Ranger (Explorer class ROVs operate at higher power levels).
The Competition is designed to present students with the types of challenges faced by scientists and engineers working in extreme ocean environments. The tasks students were asked to complete are designed to be similar to tasks scientists and engineers complete when exploring hydrothermal vents. The hydrothermal vents are hot springs located deep on the seafloor near mid-ocean ridges, where the earth’s tectonic plates slowly spread apart to create new seafloor crust. Vents emit continuous streams of super-heated, mineral-rich water through cracks in the earth’s crust, creating an ecosystem that supports unique communities.
The MATE ROV competition teaches students about science, technology, engineering, math, and critical thinking skills. They also help students become aware of technical careers in which they can apply these skills. It is a critical step in addressing the shortage of qualified engineers and technical professionals.
For the complete list of ROV competition winners and award prizes, please visit: http://www.marinetech.org/rov_competition/2008/final_standings.php.
Filed under Education | Tags: k-12, MATE ROV competition
India’s Engineering Education Dilemma
Posted by Sheri on July 16th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
India is well known for its push to catch up to the United States and other countries economically. Currently it is the second fastest growing world economy (after China). However, in the process of economic growth, India has also drawn attention to its neglect to some main stay social issues, such as education. Although India has one of the largest labor forces in the world, most work in agriculture and are not highly educated. There is a huge divde in India between educated and uneducated citizens and it is now beginning to challenge India’s growth rate. Increasingly, India is forced to look else where, like China, to recruit future science and technology workers or come up with some creative ways to bring in more skilled workers from their own country. Today’s report in the Wall Steet Journal: India Faces a Homegrown Staffing Issue: Not Enough Talent
Related links: U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology – Universities Seek to Strengthen Ties in Africa and China Science news in brief: Science grads short of goal
Filed under Future, The Economy, The National Interest | Tags: India
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