• How much science, math homework is too much?

    When it comes to adolescents with math and science homework, more is not necessarily better — an hour a day is optimal — but doing it alone and regularly produces the biggest knowledge gain, according to new research. “Our data indicate that it is not necessary to assign huge quantities of homework, but it is important that assignment is systematic and regular, with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-regulated learning,” said one of the researchers.

  • Rutgers receives $1.95 million to prepare professionals for intelligence work

    Rutgers University has received a $1.95 million grant from U.S. intelligence agencies to develop programs that prepare professionals to work in intelligence and national security positions. Through this grant, Rutgers becomes one of eight schools designated as an Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. More than fifty universities nationwide applied for these grants.

  • Louisiana Tech’s concrete canoe, steel bridge teams win big at ASCE competition

    The Louisiana Tech University’s American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge teams swept the 2015 Deep South Conference competition in Oxford, Mississippi recently, bringing nine awards back to Louisiana Tech and earning spots in the national competitions. The Deep South Conference competition, which includes teams from universities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, is held annually to enhance student knowledge of techniques, professionalism, and ethics as they relate to civil engineering, and to allow students to apply the principles and concepts they have learned in their undergraduate studies.

  • NSA’s recruitment effort challenged by Snowden leaks, private sector competition

    The NSA employs roughly 35,000 people nationwide and anticipates on recruiting at least 1,000 workers each year. For 2015, the agency needs to find 1,600 recruits, hundreds of whom must come from highly specialized fields like computer science and mathematics. The agency has been successful so far, but still faces recruitment challenges in the aftermath of the Edward Snowden revelations and competition from private sector firms who offer recruits much higher salaries.

  • U.S. engineering schools to educate 20,000 students to meet U.S. major engineering challenges

    In a letter of commitment presented to President Barack Obama at the White House Science Fair yesterday, 122 U.S. engineering schools announced plans to educate a new generation of engineers expressly equipped to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing society in the twenty-first century. Each of the 122 signing schools has pledged to graduate a minimum of twenty students per year who have been specially prepared to lead the way in solving such large-scale problems, with the goal of training more than 20,000 formally recognized “Grand Challenge Engineers” over the next decade.

  • Lockheed Martin recognized for supporting young girls’ STEM education

    Over the next eight years there will be more jobs available in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) than any other occupation. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) recently presented Lockheed Martin with its first “Invaluable” award for championing education programs that inspire the next generation of women engineers and technologists. Since 2010, Lockheed Martin has given more than $45 million to programs that promote STEM education.

  • High school study in math declining among prospective teachers

    Math and science participation among New South Wales, Australia high school students has declined starkly over the past decade, which in turn is leading to fewer teachers with this crucial background for their work in schools, according to new research. “STEM is considered critical to all new economies. Yet, unlike many countries which show improving standards on international assessments of math and science, Australian 15 year olds’ scores have been declining since 2000,” said one of the researchers.

  • Army Reserves, six universities establish cybersecurity training centers for cyber warriors

    The U.S. Army Reserves (USAR) Cyber Public Private Partnership Initiative (Cyber P3) sees the USAR partner with six universities to establish six centers of cybersecurity training for USAR. Each school in the Cyber P3 will be able to give reservists the training necessary to receive advanced foundational cyber skills and the potential equivalency for cyber Military Occupational Specialty Qualification, which would enable them to become specialists in the Army. They will also have the opportunity to enroll at the schools with scholarships provided through the program and the G.I. Bill. 

  • Software enables computers to translate words to math

    If Johnny has five apples and seven oranges, and he wants to share them with three of his friends, can a computer understand the text to figure out how many pieces of fruit each person gets? Thanks to new software developed at the University of Illinois, machines now can learn to understand mathematical reasoning expressed in language, which could greatly improve search engines and access to data as well as boost mathematics education.

  • Improving chemistry teaching throughout North America

    The Dow Chemical Company and the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT) are partnering to invigorate chemistry education and support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education in the nation’s schools. Dow and AACT will work together to convene a series of teacher summits and create more than 750 lesson plans, multimedia resources, demonstrations, and other high-quality chemistry teaching materials for use in K–12 classrooms. The work will be supported by a $1 million contribution from Dow to the AACT spread over a four year period.

  • U Wisconsin, shedding 1960s anti-classified research image, launches cybersecurity center

    A new cybersecurity research center being built in partnership with private firms and the University of Wisconsin(UW) system aims to attract high-tech research dollars to the state, but administrators must balance the secrecy required for classified research with the openness which is the foundation of academic science. The state legislature passed a 2014 law allowing UW to accept contract for classified work partly in hopes that the school system will lose the perception of being an anti-classified-research environment, a perception dating back to campus protests against military research in the 1960s.

  • Universities adding cybersecurity programs to their curricula to meet growing demand

    The cyberattacks of recent years have not only increased the demand for employees who understand the field of information assurance and cybersecurity, they have also created a demand in cybersecurity education. Universities across the country are adding cybersecurity concentrations to their curricula to train students who will later help secure network systems.

  • Consistency, collaboration needed for effective implementation of science teaching standards

    A new report just released today by the National Research Council offers guidance to district and school leaders and teachers on necessary steps for putting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) into practice over the next decade and beyond. The report’s recommendations are informed by research findings that emphasize that science and engineering involve both knowing and doing; that developing rich, conceptual understanding is more productive for future learning than simply memorizing discrete facts; and learning experiences should be designed with coherent progressions over multiple years.

  • Colleges, labs develop STEM core curriculum

    The success of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Engineering Technology Program to educate veterans for technical careers has inspired a statewide push to create an educational core curriculum to prepare junior college students for technical jobs at California’s national labs. The core curriculum being designed by a consortium of community colleges, national labs, and nonprofit educational institutes emphasizes a heavy focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses to prepare women, minorities, veterans, and other underserved populations for high-paying jobs as technologists.

  • N.M. Electric Car Challenge encourages students’ interests in STEM

    Aspiring automotive engineers from twenty-seven middle schools across New Mexico competed in the New Mexico Electric Car Challenge on 22 November at the Highland High School gymnasium in Albuquerque. The goals of the challenge are to present science and math concepts to students in a fun and exciting way, encourage team building, stimulate creative thinking, and develop students’ writing and presentation skills. The New Mexico Electric Car Challenge is a result of the collaboration and commitment of several partners to advance science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs and opportunities for schoolchildren.