District Administration - October 2011 - (Page 60)

How Are Science Fairs Faring? and planetary sciences to microbiology to engineering, counted 1,250 total projects this year, some of them jointly submitted, from almost 1,600 high school students. Proponents for national fairs point out that the recognition of student work goes far beyond the judging. Barrett insists ISEF’s high profile and $75,000 grand prize is a good sell for competing students. “When you hang out a substantial award, that says to kids you can be successful in this area and be rewarded. It’s big enough to catch their attention,” Barrett says. “Almost every year, we have kids who end up getting a patent as a result of their projects,” adds Los Angeles County Science Fair President Gilbert, who regularly stocks the Intel competition with top finishers from his regional competition. “We had one kid who developed a water filter for a polluted creek. Another developed a protocol for raising lobster larvae that’s used by scientists around the world. Our kids are getting called by engineers and scientists. That’s the type of chemistry that comes out of these science fairs.” While the Intel ISEF and the Siemens Westinghouse competition have been attracting high school scientists for better than 60 years, other national and international science fairs have come on the scene more recently. Since 1999, Discovery Education has held its annual Young Scientist Challenge for fifth- through eighth-graders. The competition poses everyday problems— from testing the “five second rule” when it comes to food safety, to finding a solution to a safety threat, to creating a video focused on an innovation that keeps people healthier. The 10 finalists earn summer internships with research scientists from the competition’s co-sponsor, manufacturing giant 3M, and the eventual winner receives a $25,000 prize and the title “America’s Top Young Scientist.” Disney Offers a Challenge The Disney Planet Challenge also targets younger students. Two years ago, Dis60 October 2011 The Hamilton (Ohio) School District’s science fair is considered a “district expectation.” Sophomores, above, show off their project, The Effect of Different Substances on the Dissolving Rate of Grow Capsules, in February. Senior Adrienne McColl of the San Pedro Marine Science Magnet School won the Los Angeles County Fair and placed first in both the California State Science Fair and in Intel’s Animal Biology category. At the Los Angeles County Science Fair, two juniors, Nathalie Rodriguez and Petcharat Denprasert, students at the Bravo Medical Magnet High School, won the Senior Sweepstakes Award for their project, Injectable Fetal Pacemaker. ney expanded its 15-year-old competition in Florida and California to the national stage. Christiane Maertens, Disney’s manager of corporate citizenship, notes that the science competition for third- through eighth-grade classrooms attracted 250 class projects in 2009-2010 and 350 last year. “It’s a competition, but also a resource that allows teachers to integrate projectbased learning in their classes with the environment, which is a hook for students,” Maertens says. Teachers can enter projects from each of their classes, and to promote increased involvement, Disney has worked with the California-based WestEd K-12 Alliance, which offers professional devel- opment in math and science, to create a free, eight-lesson curriculum on how to put a science project together. Kathy DiRanna, WestEd’s director, consulted elementary and middle school standards for all 50 states and created 50 exemplars—in areas such as recycling—to demonstrate how developing Planet Challenge projects could meet state requirements. “We wanted teachers to understand how they really could do science projects as part of a standards-based curriculum and be true to what their states were asking them to do,” DiRanna explains. “Now they can say, ‘I know I have to be accountable, but I can provide really unique District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - October 2011

District Administration - October 2011
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Transportation Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Building a Blended Learning Program
How Are Science Fairs Fairing?
A New Age for Algebra
Early College High Schools
Changing of the Guard in Florida
CIO News
How Much Computing Power Do You Need?
An Unconventional Approach to 1:1
New Books
Problem/ Solution
Research Center
Product Focus
New Products
Professional Opinion
Going Mobile
Online Edge

District Administration - October 2011