• Project gets community college students on the STEM path

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) is supporting a program — currently involving thirty-two schools, soon to be thirty-even — to bring undergraduate research into the science curricula of community colleges. The Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative (CCURI) “is the first large scale effort working to integrate undergraduate research at community colleges, institutions that serve as the entryway into higher education for many students, particularly first generation college students and students underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines,” says the NSF’s V. Celeste Carter.

  • U.S. student visa program fails to monitor participating schools: Lawmaker

    The number of student visa holders in U.S. colleges grew from 110,000 in 2001 to 524,000 in 2012. Today, more than 9,000 schools in the United States participate in the student visa enrollment program. The list includes reputable universities, but it also includes trade schools such as massage and beauty schools. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has introduced legislation to better monitor schools which attract foreign applicants. “It’s time to close the loopholes and clamp down on schools that have a poor track record with regard to foreign students,” Grassley said.

  • Kickstarter-funded video game teaches kids how to code

    Computer scientists have successfully funded on Kickstarter a new and improved version of CodeSpells, a first-person player game they developed that teaches players how to code. The game’s previous iteration has been in use in dozens of schools throughout the world for more than a year. The researchers have been using the game as a platform to learn about the best ways to teach children how to code.

  • DHS lost track of thousands of foreign students in U.S.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has lost tabs on more than 6,000 foreign students who had entered the United States on student visas which have since expired — effectively vanishing without a trace. One of the major problems relating to student visas is the fact that the U.S. government continues to grant schools the power to accept overseas applications even if the schools have not been accredited by the state and have little academic and administrative oversight.

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  • Malawi app teaches U.K. school children eighteen months of math in six weeks

    Psychologists have found that an app designed to boost the education of children in Malawi has also proved to be a highly effective learning tool for U.K. primary schoolchildren. The study has found that in just six weeks of using the math app on personal tablets in the classroom, children made as much progress as would be expected in twelve to eighteen months of class teaching.

  • Winners announced in U.S. Cyber Challenge Western regional competition

    Angela Rey, Lee Christensen, and Vincent Venem were on the winning team for the 2014 U.S. Cyber Challenge (USCC) Western Regional “Capture the Flag” competition. The seventy participants were selected based in part on their scores from Cyber Quests, an online competition offered through the USCC in April that drew more than 1,600 participants from almost 700 schools nationwide.

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  • “Active Physics” incorporates active-learning techniques while still being taught to large classes

    Large lecture courses notoriously discourage students from going into the sciences, but an innovative physics course helps to prevent this first-year slide. “Active Physics” incorporates active-learning techniques, but still is taught to large classes. Active Physics consistently outperformed traditional lecture courses in conceptual learning and in attitudes toward learning and problem solving.

  • Training cyber security specialists for U.S. critical cyber infrastructure

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is joining Bechtel BNI and Los Alamos National Laboratory to train a new class of cyber defense professionals to protect the U.S. critical digital infrastructure. The Bechtel-Lawrence Livermore-Los Alamos Cyber Career Development Program is designed to allow the national labs to recruit and rapidly develop cyber security specialists who can guide research at their respective institutions and create solutions that meet the cyber defense needs of private industry. About 80 percent of the nation’s critical digital infrastructure and assets are owned and operated by private industry.

  • Helping grow the next generation of scientists

    Scientists, uniformed service members, and the DTRA’s Chemical/Biological Technologies Department (CB) leadership worked hard to make this year’s Joint Science and Technology Institute (JSTI), a summer program for high school-aged students, designed to increase awareness and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academics, a success.

  • Creating sustainable university and college STEM programs

    A new study has identified two factors that characterize sustainable university and college programs designed to increase the production of highly qualified physics teachers. Specifically, one or more faculty members who choose to champion physics teacher education in combination with institutional motivation and commitment can ensure that such initiatives remain viable. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) teacher shortages are especially acute in physics, and the study points the way for institutions seeking to increase the number of STEM graduates prepared to teach.

  • “Aggressive” Islamic effort to influence Birmingham, U.K. schools: Report

    A report issued on 22 July by former U.K. antiterrorism chief suggests that some of the concerns raised in a letter which outlined Operation Trojan Horse — an attempt by Islamic extremists to take over British schools in Muslim neighborhoods – may be real, even if the letter itself was probably a hoax. The storm caused by the letter and the subsequent investigation and report concern more that public schools in the City of Birmingham. At issue are the clash between British and Islamic values and norms, and, more broadly, the efforts in Britain and other West Europe countries to assimilate a growing Muslim minority.

  • Training volcano scientists from around the world to predict, respond to eruptions

    Scientists and technicians who work at volcano observatories in eleven countries visited the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory earlier this month to learn techniques for monitoring active volcanoes. The International Training Program in Volcano Hazards Monitoring is designed to assist scientists from other nations in attaining self-sufficiency in monitoring volcanoes and reducing the risks from eruptions.

  • Socioeconomic status may influence understanding of science

    When it comes to science, socioeconomic status may widen confidence gaps among the least and most educated groups in society, according to a new study. The findings show that similar levels of attention to science in newspapers and on blogs can lead to vastly different levels of factual and perceived knowledge between the two groups. Notably, frequent science blog readership among low socioeconomic-status groups actually lowered their scores on factual tests of scientific knowledge while high levels of attention to science in newspapers caused them to feel they were less knowledgeable compared to those who read less or those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

  • Correcting pipeline problems to aid STEM diversity

    Educators and policymakers have spent decades trying to recruit and retain more underrepresented minority students into the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline, to no avail: Traditionally underrepresented groups remain underrepresented. A new analysis of disappointing results in the pipeline’s output leads two Brown University biologists to suggest measures to help the flow overcome an apparent gravity.

  • Congress debates BioShield funding while medical schools debate bioterrorism training

    Just as researchers urge medical schools across the United States to include bioterrorism preparedness courses in their curricula, Congress is debating whether to continue spending on Project Bioshield, an initiative launched in 2004 to incentivize otherwise unprofitable research on treatments for rare outbreaks or bioterror agents such as anthrax and botulinum toxin.