Nominations for FTEE/ITEEA/CTTE Leadership Academy Class of 2012

Do you know a technology/engineering educator who exemplifies leadership and inspires others?

The Twenty-First Century Leadership Academy provides opportunities for rising technology and engineering educators from across the country to develop as professional leaders, develop community, and have experiences related to the promotion of technology and engineering education, and technological literacy in our schools.

See program details, profiles on current and past participants, and the nomination form here: www.iteea.org/Membership/21CenturyLeaders/leaders.htm

ITEEA Board Member Receives TEEAP Middle School Teacher Excellence Award

Joanne Trombley, Technology Education Teacher at J. R. Fugett Middle School and also the Department Chair in her District, received the TEEAP Middle School Excellence Award at the TEEAP Conference Banquet held in early November. Joanne will also be recognized at the ITEEA Conference in March, 2011. The award is given jointly by the state and international associations.

Joanne has been and continues to be involved in a number of professional activities. She is the Immediate Past President of the TEEAP Council for Leadership and the Region 1 Director for ITEEA. She served TEEAP as the first female president, as a regional vice-president, and as the ITEEA-PA affiliate representative. She also serves on a variety of committees. Joanne works with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Millersville University’s “Science, Technology & Me” event, the Chester County “Girls Exploring Tomorrow’s Technology” event, and is a volunteer for “Relay for Life.”

Read the full article at: www.wcasd.net/news/news111810c.asp.

ITEEA Loses Former Board Member

Larry J. Claussen of Sioux Falls, SD, died November 18, 2010 at the age of 66, as the result of an illness. Larry was a long-time member of ITEA/ITEEA and served on the Board of Directors in 2001-2002. His life’s passion was working with young people, as evidenced by 40 plus years in education, teaching students from junior high to college level. In addition to being the national TECA director, Larry was very active in the Boy Scouts of America. He will be truly missed.

CTTE Elects Vice President and Secretary

CTTE members voted in the Fall 2010 to elect a new Vice President and Secretary.

The newly-elected Vice President is Dr. Ryan Brown of Illinois State University, and the newly-elected Treasurer is Dr. Petros Katsioloudis of Old Dominion University.

Congratulations to these two incoming members of the Council's executive team! They will start their official duties after the CTTE Business Meeting in March 2011.

For the latest CTTE news, visit http://ctte.iweb.bsu.edu/.

Design Squad Nation Announces New Website

Design Squad Nation has a new website, chock full of great resources, organized and user-friendly! Click on the very faint grey box at upper right for the Parents, Educators, and Engineers section – and don’t forget to check out the blog.....
www.pbskidsgo.org/designsquadnation.

Improving, Inspiring, Achieving – Change the Equation

Our nation’s future hinges on our ability to prepare our next generation to be innovators in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Yet far too few of our students are prepared for the challenges ahead, and other countries are leaving us in their wake. Now, more than 112 companies are joining forces to work with schools and communities to change the equation for our youth and our nation.

Five visionary leaders—former Intel CEO Craig Barrett, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, Eastman Kodak CEO Antonio Perez, and Sally Ride Science CEO Sally Ride—joined forces with Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to form Change the Equation.

Change the Equation (CTEq) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan CEO-led initiative to solve America’s innovation problem. It answers the call of President Obama’s Educate to Innovate Campaign to move the U.S. to the top of the pack in science and math education over the next decade. CTEq aims to improve STEM education for every child, with a particular focus on girls and students of color, who have long been underrepresented in STEM fields.

Change the Equation’s members will connect and align their work to transform STEM learning in the United States. Learn more about CTEq at www.changetheequation.org/.

Also, Change the Equation (CTEq) has launched a groundbreaking contest among some of the world's most innovative companies to prove just how cool jobs in STEM fields can be. The "STEM is Cool!" contest challenged these companies to produce brief videos featuring employees who use STEM in exciting or unexpected ways. As the 18 video submissions make vividly clear, jobs that require STEM are fun jobs, fascinating jobs, jobs that will change the world. And they'll be plentiful jobs. Government data show that almost all of the 30 fastest-growing occupations in the next decade will require a firm grounding in STEM.

Watch the videos, and vote for the one you like best. Tell your friends to watch and vote, too. Spread the word about how great a career in STEM can be. With your help, we can get many more American kids on a path to a much brighter future.

Mini-Urban Challenge

The Mini-Urban Challenge is a national high school robotics competition sponsored by the Institute of Navigation (ION) and the United States Air Force Research Laboratory that challenges high school students to design and operate a robotic car to autonomously navigate a LEGO® city. The competition provides high school students experience in collaboration, problem solving, team building, project and time management, and acts to inspire and attract students to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

The Mini-Urban Challenge is free to participating schools. The robotic cars used in the competition are developed using LEGO MINDSTORMS® Education kits that are provided to each participating high school free of charge. The schools keep the kits after the competition. ION also pays travel expenses for teams that qualify for the National Competition, which will be held on May 21, 2011 at The Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

Seven regional competitions will take place in the winter and spring of 2011:

• Bossier City, Louisiana: February 19-20
• Valparaiso, Florida: February 26-27
• Los Angeles, California: March 5-6
• Washington, DC: March 19-20
• Dayton, Ohio: April 16-17
• Utah: Date TBD
• Boston, Massachusetts: Date TBD

In 2010, ION was able to send LEGO MINDSTORMS® Education kits to over 50 public high schools and is hoping to expand even further in 2011. The following websites provide helpful information:

• Mini-Urban Challenge Website – www.miniurbanchallenge.com/
• Video from the 2010 Competition – www.ion.org/outreach/muc/video_2010.cfm
• 2011 MUC Rulebook – www.ion.org/outreach/muc/MUC_Rulebook.pdf
• Frequently Asked Questions – www.ion.org/outreach/muc/faq.cfm
• Application Forms – www.ion.org/outreach/muc/TeamApplications.cfm

Application deadline: January 1, 2011

STEM on YouTube

ITEEA members Phillip Cardon and Joseph Nuzzo sent the following link to a YouTube video featuring Ioannis Miaoulis from the Museum of Science Boston and the National Center for Technological Literacy (NCTL) delivering a presentation on STEM literacy. It is well worth viewing and passing on to others! Thanks, Phillip and Joe!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B-g1_6QCWU

DawnTown 2010 Winners

Winners of the 2010 DawnTown architecture competition, which invited innovative designs for a seaplane terminal on an island in downtown Miami, were announced at an award ceremony that featured remarks by world-famous architects Chad Oppenheim and Terry Riley. DawnTown Inc. organizes the annual public international architecture competition for downtown Miami. DawnTown’s mission is to bring innovative architecture to the city and to tell the exciting urban story of downtown Miami to the world. For more information, please visit www.dawntown.org.

News From the Triangle Coalition

• STEM Experts to Aid Governors in Building STEM Agendas in States
The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) has formed a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Advisory Committee to inform its work in this area and help the 29 new governors, as well as incumbents, develop comprehensive STEM agendas in their states. Advisory Committee members will serve two-year terms and represent expertise across education, policy, business, and STEM content areas. The committee will guide the expansion of the NGA Center STEM agenda to include both K-12 and higher education; provide a series of recommendations for building and advancing comprehensive STEM education agendas; and inform the development of a national STEM meeting that the NGA Center will host in the fall of 2011.

"The increasingly globalized economy requires workers with strong science, technology, engineering, and math skills," said John Thomasian, director of the NGA Center. "This Committee is intended to provide the perspectives of a variety of stakeholders to governors and states as they work to establish and grow STEM education programs that can contribute to economic competitiveness." For more information about NGA Center STEM education efforts, visit www.nga.org/center/edu.

• NASA Tiles for Teachers
The Space Shuttle has made space exploration history over the past 30 years by regularly traveling through extreme temperature fluctuations. Scientists and engineers collaborated to develop unique materials to withstand these extreme temperatures. This led to the development of five space shuttles with their unique "skin" of shuttle tiles. NASA is now offering a limited number of space shuttle tiles to schools on a first-come, first-served basis. Schools may request a tile online. Click on the tile icon to log on to the request page. Additional information on tiles is available at the website as well as recommendations for curriculum and science lab projects. While you are at the website, you also can view and request other artifacts that are offered periodically. Directions for requesting artifacts are also available online.

Source: Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin
December 9, 2010 - Volume 16, Number 46 Online Version

News From IWITTS

• WomenTech Educators Workshop
Join Donna Milgram, National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science (IWITTS) Executive Director and WomenTech Educators Course Developer, at the 32nd WomenTech Educators Train-the-Trainer Workshop on February 24-25th, 2011 in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area.

You'll discover time-saving proven practices for recruiting women to technology classes—strategies that can help you spend your time where it matters most ... in the classroom.

Learn More
Register Now
Questions? Contact IWITTS.

• Women and Men are Different – and That's a Good Thing!
In the recent survey sponsored by the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science (IWITTS) on "Why It's Important to Have Women in STEM," the number one reason given was that women bring a different perspective to STEM, and that diversity of thought can bring unique and innovative solutions.

The Women in Science and Engineering Business Idea Competition was created to tap a growing pool of these highly educated women who have the potential to start scalable science- and engineering-related ventures. The entrant with the best idea for transforming an industry and significantly impacting lives will receive an all-expenses paid trip to TED 2011. 

Along this theme, the IWITTS Facebook post "Female bioengineering students turn an everyday salad spinner into an anemia diagnosis tool for use in rural and economically under-developed regions of the world" received the most impressions of any of its posts so far.

You can check out this post on the IWITTS wall at Facebook.com/iwitts. There is lots of useful content on the IWITTS Facebook page (though not more than one post a day.) 

The National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science (IWITTS) helps educators nationwide close the gender gap for women and girls in technology.

Source: WomenTech Educators Newsletter, December 9, 2010

News From Delaware

• Google SketchUp for K-12 Education
"SketchUp is the finest (and most innovative) tool available for anyone designing anything from coffee pots to skyscrapers." http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/industries/edu/primary.html

• The Design Process
Students will learn through a nonlinear design process, which includes ethnographic research, generation of multiple (sometimes crazy!) ideas, development of a few of those ideas into workable concepts, prototyping of those potential solutions, iterative refinement, and finally the construction and implementation of the solution. The process is messy, creative, surprising, and human-centered, resulting in solutions that emerge from need and community interest rather than schematic form-making. An iterative process (which usually includes multiple rounds of prototyping-refining), distills concepts into working solutions through testing and user feedback. www.studio-h.org/curriculum

• Video Discussing the Design Process
This video segment, adapted from Thinking Big, Building Small, demonstrates each part of the engineering design process, which is fundamental to any successful project. Though it does this in the context of building skyscrapers, the process is applicable to any sort of project, including constructing schools, building bridges, and even manufacturing sneakers. Students will recognize the value of going through its steps sequentially when constructing scale models. (from Teachers Domain – www.teachersdomain.org/resource/phy03.sci.engin.design.desprocess/)

• Free Bridge Design Software
The West Point Bridge Designer 2011: This is the only version of the software that can be used to enter the 2011 West Point Bridge Design Contest. http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/index.htm

• Chair Design
How much weight must your chair hold and who is it for? These are aspects of function. Is it to your advantage to use less material, or will this have an adverse impact on the structural strength of your chair? How will you make your chair look good and be comfortable with the material, size, and load limitations of the challenge? And what looks good to you, anyway? You will have to answer these and other questions for yourself as you develop your design. The tradeoffs you make will help determine the success or failure of your work. www.tiesmagazine.org/archives/sep_2002/pdf/sep_2002_ChairDesign.pdf

• Build a Paper Model of the Chevrolet Volt
Electric cars don't need to look much different from the cars you see on the road today. The Chevrolet Volt is designed to have the same features that adults use now while driving, like four wheels, seats in certain positions, and a trunk to hold things. Even though the Volt has a battery pack and generator, see how it will look by building your own paper model. www.gm.com/corporate/responsibility/education/5-8/fuels_energy/paper_volt.jsp

• Animated Engines
Animated engines provides you with animated illustrations that show the inner workings of a variety of engines. This website began life as an experiment in web publishing, but has grown more and more focused on animated engines. www.animatedengines.com/

• Construction Technologies
To begin a skyscraper unit, do a lesson on construction technologies to familiarize the students with various construction materials, loads, and forces.
www.tiesmagazine.org/archives/jun_2003/pdf/jun_2003_Skyscrapers.pdf

• 2011 Shell Eco-marathon TEAM Registration
Join us online or at the track for the Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2011 that will take place April 14-17, 2011 in Houston, Texas at Discovery Green park. The winners are the teams that go the farthest distance using the least amount of energy. This event also affords an outstanding engagement opportunity for current and future leaders who are passionate about finding sustainable solutions to the world’s energy challenges. www.shell.com/home/content/ecomarathon/registration/

• Class Activity: Earthquake-Proof Towers
Never build a house of straw—that's conventional wisdom. But in this creative activity, students in Grades 6-12 build a tower of drinking straws to withstand simulated earthquake vibrations and increasing pressure. Doing so, they learn basic principles of earthquake engineering while practicing team skills. http://teachers.egfi-k12.org/activity-earthquake-proof-structure/

• Ready to Launch
In this lesson, students in Grades 4-12 learn about the history of catapults and how they work. They assemble their own catapult model, making adjustments to improve its performance. Students gain engineering experience while learning principles of physics and working with the scientific processes of experimentation and trial and error. http://teachers.egfi-k12.org/lesson-build-a-catapult/

• Paper Roller Coaster Contest
Have your students solving problems, adapting to new situations, and adjusting to changes. www.mrwaynesclass.com/ProjectCoaster/index.html

• The Pringles Packaging Challenge
This is a clever variation on the classic egg-drop activity. For both, students attempt to produce a package design that will protect a delicate item—and they learn about engineering design in the process. Students design a package for a single Pringles potato chip that will allow it to be sent through the mail and arrive intact. http://teachers.egfi-k12.org/activity-package-the-pringle/

• BYF Career Video
Step inside the construction industry and experience the exciting and rewarding construction career opportunities available to young people! http://byf.org/

• Go!
Go! is a free, online magazine for teens and young adults ages 14–20 that explores the world of transportation and the careers they can find there. The magazine covers transportation from all angles, from the infrastructure to the vehicles to the people behind the wheel—whether that wheel is on a car, truck, train, plane, or ship. http://go-explore-trans.org/go/gonew/

• The Manufacturing & Engineering Technologies Education Clearinghouse (METEC)
METEC is a searchable database of materials submitted by educators from around the world. Topics covered include classroom content and pedagogy. New materials are added continually, so be sure to check back often. To get started, select your area of interest or do a quick clearinghouse search. www.meteconline.org/

• PTC Pro/Engineer Academy
Gain nearly $1 million worth of FREE CAD Software today!
Here you will find self-directed and self-paced tutorials to get you started using your FREE Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire! www.ptcacademy.com/

• Design Squad Nation  
Premiering on PBS in January 2011, DESIGN SQUAD NATION is a 10-part series of TV shows and video blogs that build on the success of the award-winning PBS reality competition series DESIGN SQUAD to get kids excited about engineering. DESIGN SQUAD NATION is high-energy, high-drama reality TV led by Judy and Adam, two professional engineers who work with kids around the world to make their wishes come true through engineering. http://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/program/index.html

GRANTS, AWARDS, and OPPORTUNITIES

• The STEM Academy has recently announced a STEM Corporate Matching Grant Fund to assist schools with the implementation of The STEM Academy. Any high school may apply for implementation of The STEM Academy Foundational Courses through this grant program. The STEM Academy is a national nonprofit K-12 STEM education program featuring fun, collaborative learning, hands-on projects, extensive validation and assessment, and mapping to national standards for each STEM area. It provides truly integrated STEM education for ALL students—not just the top 15% of college-bound learners, and is delivered through a Moodle-formatted, web-based Learning Management System. It also offers students the opportunity for post-secondary articulation credit and industry and software certification. The program has been designed with affordability and long-term financial viability in mind. STEM Academy courses can be offered as stand-alone courses, or units may be integrated separately into existing academic and CTE courses to provide application and context for STEM subject matter for all students. Check out www.STEM101.org for more information.

• Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation: Toolbox for Education Grant
Lowe's Toolbox for Education grant program funds school improvement projects initiated by parents in recognition of the importance of parent involvement in education.
http://toolboxforeducation.com/

• AIAA: Classroom Grants
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation Classroom Grants are awarded to encourage excellence in educating students about math, science, technology, and engineering.
www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=244

• Extreme Redesign Contest
We're looking for CAD students worldwide to submit their most creative, useful, and innovative Extreme Redesigns. www.dimensionprinting.com/extreme-redesign/extreme-redesign-main.aspx

• NASA Endeavor Science Teaching Certificate Project awards one-year fellowships each year to over 40 current and prospective teachers.
The Project is administered by U.S. Satellite Laboratory, Inc. and partnered with various State Departments of Education. Endeavor Fellows receive award-winning STEM Professional Development, taking graduate courses in an innovative, LIVE (online) format from the comfort of their home or school. They learn to apply research-based pedagogical strategies and cutting-edge STEM content to their classroom contexts while becoming a part of a special network of like-minded educators across the Nation.
www.us-satellite.net/endeavor/?CFID=1293405&CFTOKEN=11574693

• Toyota – Your Ideas For Good
Big ideas are bigger than cars. Toyota has proved this time and time again by sharing its big inventions with the world outside of cars. Everybody has a few good ideas, and Toyota wants to help make some of them a reality. So they’re sharing some of their most innovative technologies with you in the hope that you’ll share your good ideas to improve the world.
https://www.yourideasforgood.com/about

 Source: Delaware ETE Flash Newsletter – December 2010

NASA Educational Program

NASA eClips™ is an Emmy Award-winning multimedia program producing educational video segments for use in the classroom. The 3-7 minute video segments inspire and engage students with current, real-world STEM applications. Video content is aligned with national curriculum standards, freely available, and in short, manageable lengths to fit today's 21st Century classroom. A link to NASA eClips is now available on ITEEA’s Technology Education Websites page, www.iteea.org/Resources/tewebsites.htm, as a Teacher Resource Site.

You can also visit NASA’s Portal site, www.nasa.gov/education/nasaeclips to learn more about the program and to see what is available (videos, educator guides, etc). Currently, there are over 200 video segments, targeting grades K-4 (Our World), 5-8 (Real World), 9-12 (Launchpad), and the general public (NASA 360). NASA eClips has received over 2.6 million hits since it was launched in September 2008.

New NASA Astronaut Blog

NASA education writer Heather R. Smith has a new blog: Taking Up Space. Geared primarily toward middle and high school students, the blog (http://bit.ly/co9dfW) features stories about people and events from Smith’s research and gives students a real-world glimpse of working astronauts. To keep updated on new blog entries, become a fan of the Taking Up Space Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/aeeyVI) or follow the Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/NASAblogTUS).

Photo courtesy of Krista Jones.