Now This Should Be an Interesting Presentation at the Legislature.

This article appeared in today's Times.

"On Friday, Edwards and about 15 of her robotics teammates will journey to Olympia to lobby the Legislature to fund robotics teams in high schools statewide.

The students' pitch to legislators is straightforward: Robotics teams are a great way to motivate students to learn more about science, technology and math — all hot-button topics in education.

As state educators debate ways to get more students to meet state standards for math and science, these students say extracurricular activities such as building a robot and taking it to a competition could make learning a lot more fun and effective."

Great idea as most of these teams have to scrounge for private support. I know Roosevelt has a team and I believe Hale does as well. It is really a great way to teach science and math as well as to have competitions which motivate many students.

Comments

Anonymous said…
There are lots of other math & science competitions that local schools participate in. MATHCOUNTS, for middle schools, is coming up next month.
http://www.mathcounts.org/
1/17/08, 3:48 PM
Anonymous said…
I think what Melissa is saying is that Robotics are attractive to kids. And, anything attractive, engaging and FUN will draw more kids to participate and overtly expose them to math and science. Mathcounts is great, but only attracts students who are math motivated....robotics on the other hand will attract a larger group, and thus expose more kids to math!
1/18/08, 1:29 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Who Is A. J. Crabill (and why should you care)?

Why You Should Care Mr. Crabill has found quite the acolyte in Director Chandra Hampson. In the course of discussions over SOFG, she says his name over and over, "A.J .says we...." Now that's not too surprising given the direction the district is heading and that it is Mr. Crabill's work with the Council of Great City Schools is how we got here. But it appears that Mr. Crabill is working very closely with Hampson and we know she wields some amount of power over the majority of the Board. Mr. Crabill is going to continue to work with the Board as SOFG is instituted in SPS. In fact, his role may become more public as it did at one SPS Board meeting in the spring where he was on the phone during the meeting and suggested the Board stop the meeting to "self-reflect." I also noticed that in a district in South Carolina, when things weren't going to plan, he blamed the Board for not following SOFG to the letter. Look for that to happen here if Board members w
Read more

Why the Majority of the Board Needs to be Filled with New Faces

This may only be a partial list of reasons; please, add anything else in the comments. The deadline to file to run for the Board is May 19th. Entire Board Majority NOT vetting the Superintendent in any way, shape or form. Even the Seattle Times thought that was wrong.  It was just absolute hubris and it was wrong. For the second time in just over a year , board members voted to negotiate a superintendent contract during a special meeting with no opportunity for public comment. This time, they showed an even deeper disregard for their responsibilities as public servants: Aborting a national search for a new superintendent and denying Interim Superintendent Brent Jones a chance to show students, parents and taxpayers that, indeed, he is the best person for the job. Government bodies can’t fast-forward through transparent processes just because they think they know the right answer. One other odd thing about the hiring of Brent Jones - most permanent SPS superintendent contracts ar
Read more