Remember the State of the Union address last week? President Obama called for greater emphasis in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. In a NYT article today (courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), teachers voice their concerns with that effort in regards to the administration’s focus on standardized testing.

While I don’t want to discount the need for teachers to put forward their best efforts in teaching students and, yes, some measure of that may involve standardized testing. But when it interferes with exceptional teachers’ ability to use creative approaches towards instilling concepts core to STEM topics, it should be questioned.

Science Fairs are near and dear to my heart.  I competed in science fairs from 7th grade until my senior year in high school, peaking with multiple awards my junior year in local fairs, US Air Force and the Westinghouse National Science Fair.  I was lucky that my parents provided a lot of guidance and help but ultimately left it to me to research, understand and execute the project. 

What is most concerning to me in the report is this tidbit: “But what has been lost, proponents of local science fairs say, is the potential to expose a much broader swath of American teenagers to the scientific process: to test an idea, evaluate evidence, ask a question about how the world works — and perhaps discover how difficult it can be to find an answer.”   Think about that again, “What has been lost…is expos[ure]…to the scientific process”.  Think about the rush to conclusions as of late – global warming (oops, I mean climate change, my talking points are dated) for example.  Clearly they are the bad science fair projects.

If you get a chance, I would encourage every parent to have their child participate in a science fair.  You never know what the child will latch onto.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.