School-children will soon be able to transform and re-invent their playground environments thanks to NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) – the organization that champions UK innovation and creativity. NESTA has invested £200,000 in the development of the Experimental Playground Kit, brainchild of artist organisation, ‘Snug and Outdoor’.
NESTA’s support will enable Snug and Outdoor to develop their kit – a set of flexible building materials – that wi
An elementary school intervention program that taught children impulse control and gave their teachers and parents better management skills has long-lasting effects extending into early adulthood, showing that the children are more productive and well-adjusted members of society at age 21, according to a new study.
More children who received the intervention graduated from high school and had completed at least two years of college compared to children who did not receive the int
Using the latest catch-phrase or – even more importantly – knowing when to stop using it, can help you to be accepted as one of the in-crowd. Getting it wrong will dismiss you as a sad case.
The word ‘chav’ may well be a case in point. Currently on everyone’s lips, it could disappear completely before very long.
The pitfalls of popular language are just as true historically as they are now. For those researching for books or films with a historical flavour, it may seem obv
The University of Manchester has launched the largest engineering school in the UK.
The School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) was officially launched at a special event headlined by keynote speaker Richard Noble, holder of the world land speed record, and attended by industry leaders from Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Pilkington.
With over 1200 students and 250 staff, MACE is not only the largest Engineering school in the UK (in terms of student numb
The world’s leading online service for sci-tech information STN International, whose European partner is FIZ Karlsruhe, has complemented its offer of specialist databases with LISA, a new database for library and information science.
LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts) produced by Cambridge Scientific Abstracts is is an international abstracting and indexing tool designed for library professionals and other information specialists. It covers a wide variety of subjects
In Professor Richard Foulds’ freshman design class, students perform angioplasty on pasta, amniocentesis on jelly donuts and surgery on hot dogs.
Foulds, along with other professors at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is pioneering a new way to educate engineers. Professors who use the method, called studio learning, demonstrate the fundamentals of engineering not by lecture and recitation but by active, hands-on, experiment-based learning. “Our students love studi
Without making outdoor education a statutory part of every child’s schooling, the government risks undermining its ability to tackle important environmental issues such as climate change, the British Ecological Society has warned.
Reacting to yesterday’s adjournment debate on schools and fieldwork in the House of Commons, Debbie Smith, the BES education officer said: “Outdoor classroom education allows students to connect abstract scientific ideas with ‘hands on’ experi
Ball State University kicks off its 2004-05 season of E3 Electronic Field Trips with “Into the Canyon”—the first-ever, live educational broadcast from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim.
The Electronic Field Trip, developed by Ball State’s Teachers College in partnership with the National Parks Foundation and the National Parks Service and sponsored by Best Buy Children’s Foundation, will air at 6:30 p.m. EST Nov. 8
As the sun sets over one of the greatest natural wonders
On 25 October 2004, the Initiative for Science in Europe (ISE) was officially launched at an ISE conference in Paris, France.
The launch marked the coming together of some 35 European scientific organizations to structure and give greater weight to the input of the scientific community into science policy-making and to promote the European Research Council (ERC).
ISE is an independent and informal platform for organizations committed to the scientific and technological develop
Allowing medical students to interact with patients earlier in their medical course would better prepare them for their future role as a doctor, suggest researchers in this week’s BMJ.
Traditionally, the foundation years of medical education have grounded students in biomedical sciences but offered little, if any, clinical exposure. A group of 64 medical students, staff, and curriculum leaders from three UK medical schools discussed the question: “What can experience add to
University of York finds ’real life’ is key to learning
Secondary schoolchildren are far more positive about science if they are taught how it relates to real life, University of York researchers have discovered. For example, if they are learning about forces and motion, they might begin by looking at what happens when they ride a bicycle. Films and news stories about cloning might help them to explore ideas about genes and heredity.
A study of research literatur
Despite Government efforts to promote ‘lifelong learning’ and a more equitable and inclusive ‘learning society’ there is little special or new about adult learning in the digital age, according to research at Cardiff University.
The Adult Learning@Home project, which was funded by ESRC, concluded that ICT has not increased participation and achievement rates in adult education. Instead, e-learning tends to be associated with the same factors that determine school-leaving age, such as
Exposing babies and young children to music has a positive impact on their learning, researchers from Northumbria University will tell a conference this week.
In addition to enhancing their musical development, it appears to have a significant positive impact on their social development as well as literacy and numeracy.
The conference in Newcastle on Friday (10 September) will reveal the interim findings on a three-year study funded by Youth Music involving 750 children f
Fluorescent pink key chains may not immediately call to mind “high-tech,” but for students in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana, key chains designed and manufactured by their own hands on modern fabrication tools represents the first link from the high-tech world to the world they live in.
In July and August, a team from MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) deployed its sixth field “fab lab,” based on the campus of the Takoradi Technical Institute in the sister cities of Sekondi and Tako
How can we best use observations and models to quantify the state of the Earth System and better understand the coupled interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere and biosphere? This complex but vital question was at the heart of the second ESA Summer School on Earth System Monitoring & Modelling.
This summer, 68 young scientists coming from 21 countries across the world (e.g. Europe, Canada, Australia, Argentine, Brazil, China, India) converged on ESA’s European Sp
The science and engineering (S&E) workforce of the United States depends heavily on graduates with at least a four-year college education. However, individuals employed in S&E occupations with less than a bachelor’s degree account for more than one-fifth of those employed in S&E occupations.
These S&E workers, more than 1 million people, hold high school diplomas (5 percent of the S&E workforce) or associate’s degrees (17 percent). These data, from the April 2003 “Current Population
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