Education

There's just under one week until the first-ever National Math Festival  comes to Washington, D.C. on April 18! The country's first national festival dedicated to discovering the delight and power of mathematics will take place in several Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of Natural History, National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of African Art, Freer and Sackler Galleries, Enid A. Haupt Garden, and S. Dillon Ripley Center.

When I took on the challenge to integrate literacy into new SSEC products, I immediately started thinking about how we would develop reading materials for young learners. That seemed logical...literacy equals reading. As I began researching strategies and best practices for integrating literacy into science curriculum, I realized I was barely scratching the surface of literacy connections by concentrating on reading. Looking at the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts provided even more insight.

Findings from science education research rarely make their way into classroom practice. As I've discussed before on the PLOS Sci-Ed blog, there are a lot of entrenched barriers that continue to separate these efforts. For one, most science education research is still primarily published in journal articles that are often difficult to access -- and always dense, lengthy reads.

"I'm chuffed to bits that I could help!" --Terry

The second Smithsonian Science Education Academy for Teachers (SSEAT) of the summer came to a successful close once again in the middle of July. The focus of this academy was Energy's Innovations and Implications. The participants heard from a diverse set of speakers on past, current, and future renewable sources of energy as well as how energy has transformed the world we live in for the past 200 years.

The world of Good Thinking! is full of interesting characters, each of whom bring their own brand of humor and information to the series. None are as vital to the show's mission, however, as its main protagonist and star--science teacher Isabella Reyes. Ms. Reyes is the only character who appears in every Good Thinking! episode, and much of the series takes place either in her classroom or in her imagination.