Tag - elementary curriculum

The Best Teachers Make Learning Memorable

By Blog Editor Susan Wells

As the summer begins to wind down, parents begin to trek to the stores with supply lists in hand and the summer learning break turns to talk about our education system.

What do teachers do over their summer break? Some take to the classroom to do a little learning themselves. Some of the best of the best travel to Denver for Science in the Rockies, a 3-day hands-on science class taught to teachers by our very own Steve Spangler.

Over 100 teachers from across the country (and a few from across the globe) came to learn how to squeeze a little science, a little laughter and a little engagement into their classrooms this next school year.

As testing pressures increase, budgets shrink and class sizes grow, how do teachers motivate and cultivate learning and thinking inside and out of their classroom?

Preschool is all about hands-on learning – tactiles, imaginative play, color mixing and science centers. But what happens when they trek off to elementary school?

At our elementary school, science and social studies rotate. Two weeks for science, while social studies take a break, then
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No Need to Hire Americans – A Wake-up Call to all Parents

Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, recently interviewed Craig Barrett, the chief executive of Intel, which has invested millions of dollars in trying to improve the way science is taught in U.S. schools. In today’s flat world, Mr. Barrett said, Intel can be a totally successful company without ever hiring another American. That is not its desire or intention, he said, but the fact is that it can now hire the best brain talent “wherever it resides.”

If you look at where Intel is making its new engineering investments today, he said, it is in China, India, Russia, Poland and, to a lesser
extent, Malaysia and Israel. While cutting-edge talent is still being grown in America, he added, it’s not enough for Intel’s needs, and not enough is being done in U.S. public schools – not just to leave no child behind, but to make sure that the best students and teachers are nurtured and rewarded.

What’s the solution? Stop squeezing science of out of the elementary curriculum! Our young children today will never become the scientists of tomorrow if we continue to put science on the pack burner until we have time to teach it in
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