Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Thinking space tourism is a pipe dream for the distant future? Think again. Virgin Galactic is gearing up to deliver this service for $200,000 per ride starting in 2010. This may sound like an urban legend, but the groundbreaking of New Mexico’s spaceport last week in Upham was real. XCOR Aerospace and Armadillo Aerospace are developing spacecraft that could drop the per-flight cost to $100K, and those are just initial prices. What do you think these costs will be in just ten years?

Hold on to your hat, Buck Rogers. Our blue planet beckons.

Empower the dreamers. Our day to slip the surly bonds of earth is coming.

Technorati Tags:
space, tourism, flight, commercial, newmexico

Thanks to both Eric Langhorst and Beth Still for tweeting the link to this amazing footage from Vortex2 of the tornado this past week in Wyoming. The most remarkable part of this video for me was this section which showed a “tornado within a tornado.”

I remember many years ago talking about tornados with my former Troop 74 Scoutmaster, Ray Hightower, and he told me about his theory that many destructive tornados actually have smaller vortexes inside them which do much of the damage we see from these storms. I’ve never forgotten him telling me about that, but until today I’d never seen video footage which supports that theory. Amazing.

It was a great blessing, as far as I’ve heard, that this tornado was out in the middle of no where and did not affect any populated areas.

Technorati Tags:
tornado, video, wyoming, funnel

My son and I really enjoy watching NOVA specials on our home DVR. We haven’t done this in awhile, but last week we made some time to watch the episode titled, “The Last Extinction.” For some reason our DVR cut the episode off early, so we were delighted to find that the entire program is available online to watch for free! We were able to watch the rest of Chapter 5, “Where’s the Crater,” as well as the final chapter, “An Open Question,” by connecting a MacBook laptop to our home TV and stereo amplifier.

There were LOTS of new vocabulary words and concepts we learned about for the first time as a result of this program. I had never heard of nano-diamonds or hexagonal diamonds, which the program authors explained must be “completely extra-terrestrial” because of their unique atomic, crystalline structures. See the Washington Post article, “Gems Point to Comet as Answer to Ancient Riddle,” from January 2, 2009, for more on this.

Scientists have been looking for Iridium traces in the “black mat” layer of geologic history, preserved well in parts of Arizona, which appears to be a smoking gun showing when a large number of enormous, North American mammals were suddenly killed off. “The Last Extinction” theory is that instead of “overkill theory” which holds that native people were the cause of these extinctions, a massive asteroid collision similar to the one theorized to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs was responsible for the North American large mammal extinction that took place only about 12,900 years ago. This extinction involved around 35 different, large North American mammals.

One of the biggest questions posed by scientists who doubt this theory is, “Where is the impact crater?” The NOVA program explains that the crater could be missing because the impact could have been distributed over parts of the northern ice sheets, and therefore have not left visible, residual evidence behind.

It’s amazing to consider that the Greenland ice sheet includes over 450,000 years of geologic history. Wow.

Imagine a “storm of comets” hitting the earth. That’s been the subject of multiple books and films, including the 1998 movie “Armageddon.” Last week I saw the movie “Knowing,” which deals with an extinction event caused by massive coronal flares rather than an asteroid collision. These events have happened in the past, and could happen in the future. It’s amazing to consider what might have caused these massive extinctions in North America such a short time ago, geologically speaking, and consider how we can best theorize their cause today given the evidence as well as the tools at our fingertips.

NOVA rocks. It’s amazing we have access to such thought provoking and inspiring scientific programs like these as part of our monthly cable TV subscription, and that (thanks to our DVR as well as the NOVA website) we can watch them in their entirety, at our leisure.

I think many of the conversations we’ve had at home following these NOVA specials have likely surpassed the potential for engagement provided by my son’s 5th grade science textbook and district approved science curriculum. It’s so much fun to learn like this together at home!

Technorati Tags:
nova, science, iridium, overkill, extinction, asteroid, armageddon, learning

At the February 2009 Oklahoma Technology Association’s conference, keynote speaker Will Richardson told a story about the worksheets his own students bring home from their public school each week which resonated with me. Will said he’d contemplated keeping all the papers for an entire school year in a big stack, and then photographing them to document the school-communicated learning they’d experienced all year. I then thought about doing the same thing, since our two oldest children (who are in elementary school) bring home a “Thursday folder” each week filled with the worksheets they’ve completed.

Last night, Alexander asked me to review his paperwork for the week and sign his folder. He was particularly proud of a very challenging social studies test which he’d aced, as well as a writing assignment he completed: A time-capsule letter to a future student at his school in 10 years. After reviewing all his papers and grades, we spread them all out on the floor of our living room. Several of these documents were multi-page, stapled together. This is a week’s worth of worksheets from his school, sent home this week in the “Thursday folder.”

Alexander and his sister DO attend a wonderful school, but in many ways it defines “a worksheet school.” The students DO participate in wonderful musical programs, participate in memorable class-wide events like the re-enactment of the Oklahoma land run, and participate in living history museums. They also have time each day for recess, which is more than the Texas school we left three years ago provided for students in grades three and above. (That was due to high-stakes testing pressure - The school was “exemplary” but they still didn’t have time to let 9 year olds have recess during the day.)

At our current Oklahoma elementary school, “learning evidence” from the week is communicated to parents almost exclusively via the “Thursday folder” and the worksheets it contains. Our school is very common in following this procedure in Oklahoma. This is what kids do in most schools today in 2009: worksheets. This is how most schools communicate with parents about the “learning” their children are allegedly doing in class each day: by sending home worksheets.

My problem with this situation? It’s twofold. First, many of these worksheets are stupid, irrelevant, busy work. Second, worksheets tell me VERY LITTLE about the things my child understands, perceives, knows, and wonders about. Worksheets are almost useless to me as a parent interested in the learning activities and developmental progress of my child, compared to alternative forms of assessment. It’s good to see how Alexander’s writing skills are developing, including his handwriting. But it saddens me to see worksheets like this which he’s spent HOURS in some cases completing.

There are SO many more valuable ways to spend heartbeats than completing word search puzzles. This is busy work, and I think assignments like this contribute very little, if at all, to meaningful learning experiences for my children inside and outside of school.

Included in the assortment of worksheets sent home this week in the Thursday folder were several pages about science and the unit on light they’ve been studying. I asked Alexander if he’d done any experiences during the unit on light. He said yes initially, but further questioning revealed HE had not done the experiments, he had watched the teacher demonstrate some things in front of the class. He had not formulated ANY hypotheses and tested them with experimentation and observation. How is my son supposed to learn the scientific method and become the engineer he aspires to be, if his school does not provide him with REGULAR opportunities to learn the scientific method by PRACTICING the scientific method? (David Thornburg’s message from CoSN09 burns in my mind when I ask these questions.) The answer? Like many things (including writing with social media and learning about hyperlinked writing) it’s up to us as parents to teach these things at home. What about other kids whose parents are not focused on these issues? Who is going to “turn these elementary age kids on” to science? If we really care about STEM, why are we not insisting on a hands-on approach to science in our schools which involves regular experimentation instead of endless note taking and worksheets?

Alexander recorded this short, 90 second video explaining about his Thursday folder and demonstrating what happens at the end of Thursday night after we’ve looked at the pile of worksheets: They get thrown into the trash can. (We did save his social studies test he was so proud of, however, and put it on the fridge.)

I dearly wish our school district was willing to embrace the constructive potential of social media to help students “show what they know” and more meaningfully document their journeys of learning with images, audio, and video than anyone can ever do with mere worksheets. After Alexander shared his “time capsule” letter with me last night, I asked him to quickly record it onto a short, three image VoiceThread for which he selected the photos. This took five minutes for us to do together, and I posted it to our family learning blog. His grandparents in Kansas were able to listen to him and watch this today, and told us on the phone they loved it. They hadn’t realized he’s planning to major in robotics at Kansas State in college! I hadn’t either until I read his essay. Without this technological documentation of his learning, there is little chance his Kansas grandparents would have EVER seen, read, or heard this letter. Thanks to technology sharing tools like VoiceThread, however, they did and now you can too. This is extremely important and valuable stuff to Alexander and to our family. And, it’s free to do.

We need to get digital tools into the hands of ALL our students in grades three and up as soon as possible, as well as our teachers. This morning I had a chance to briefly examine a $200 Lenovo S10 Netbook owned by James Deaton, and I marveled at the size, capabilities, and price point of this device.

Hat tip to Dawn Danker for taking the first photo in this series of me with the netbook.

When are my own children going to be able to use technologies like these IN SCHOOL here in Oklahoma? The clock is ticking. They’re learning plenty about how to use technology tools here at home, but we have much more limited opportunities to digitally create, collaborate, and communicate compared to what could be accomplished during the school day.

I have my fingers crossed that our state’s educational technology stimulus money will be used in an innovative way to empower students in a few more Oklahoma school districts (in addition to Crescent, Howe, and Lowery) to learn in 1 to 1 environments.

Meanwhile, we’ll continue to watch the stream of worksheets come home each week in the Thursday folders.

Technorati Tags:
assessment, learning, edmond, oklahoma, school, science, stem, hypothesis, handson, thornburg, lenovo, s10, netbook, technology, voicethread, onetoone, 1to1, pbl, assess, measure, worksheet, folder, thursday

This podcast is a recording of Dr. David Thorburg’s presentation “Science Education from a Technology Leader’s Perspective” at the 2009 CoSN Conference on March 11, 2009. The official conference program description of this session was: K-12 education science, technology, engineering and mathematics is a hot topic today, with conversations spanning from the classroom to the Oval Office.  Technology can be used in ways that help address many of the challenges facing K-12 STEM programs.  This dynamic talk explores five challenges:  Shortage of qualified teachers; Learning that science is a vibrant human activity, cutting back on hand’s- on science instruction; Science as inquiry and projects; Connecting science to other subjects.  By moving toward a more constructionist approach to science instruction, taking advantage of various cutting-edge probe-ware tools and other computer based resources, many of these challenges can be addressed in ways that greatly increase student appreciation for more analytical subjects.  Our economic recovery requires a highly educated populace, and this presentation tackles some of those challenges head-on.

 

 Podcast305: Science Education from a Technology Leader’s Perspective by Dr. David Thornburg [01:06:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1015)

Show Notes:

1. Dr. Thornburg’s website: The Thornburg Center for Space Exploration
2. My text notes from this session
3. PhET: Free online physics, chemistry, biology, earth science and math simulations (University of Colorado at Boulder)
4. Explore Learning Gizmos
5. Instructables
6. PASCO’s Spark
7. Futurework 2020

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

Receive an email alert whenever a new Speed of Creativity podcast is published!

These are my notes from David Thornburg’s presentation “Science Education from a Technology Leader’s Perspective” at the CoSN 2009 conference in Austin, Texas. He shared this presentation on 11 March 2009.

Isn’t it amazing we’ve gone from looking for cool ballpoint pens at conferences from looking for 1 GB pen drives

Now 3M has a $300 projector using LEDs, 10 lumens, that is the size of your hand
- within 6 months I think we’ll see a 800 lumen LED projector, it will be more than $300 but not much more
- life of LEDs is said to be 10,000 hours, based on our tests it may be more like 20,000 to 30,000 hours

Let’s go back in our “wayback machine”
- my world changed on October 4, 1957 with the launch of Sputnik
- that event really enticed me to get excited about science, engineering, and all this stuff
- without having my excitement captured by Sputnik

Nov 13, 1957 President Eisenhower gave a speech encouraging US to change its schools in fundamental ways, and we DID it

Technology in the old days
- film strips, movies
- machine tools
- soldering irons
- wood lathes
- iron foundry
- printing presses
- real world tools of all kinds
- (personal computers were still many years away)

We need to broaden our minds beyond computers and the Internet when we think of technologies in schools
- many kids don’t have opportunities to go to schools with these rich tools

quotation from “Learning for the 21st Century, Partnership for 21st Century Skills”
- Participating effectively…

some challenges
- shortage of qualified teachers
- learning that science is a vibrant human activity
- cutting back on hands-on science instruction
- science as inquiry and projects
- connecting science to other subjects

need to break down the stove

Great quotation about Science by Joel Stein from Chicago Tribune

Stats on “students taught by teachers with no major or certification in the subject taught, 1999-2000″
- grades 9-12
- physical science: 63%
- chemistry: 61%
- physics 67%

Why is it OK to say you’re not good at math, when it is NOT ok culturally to say you’re not good at reading

Article from the Wichita Eagle: “Filipino teacher experiment a success”
- Feb 8, 2009

Learning that science is a vibrant activity
something to do:
- write down the name of a scientist
- in most cases, the name written down had the following 3 characteristics:
1- white
2- dead
3- male

Newton, Einstein (who was a mathematician primarily), Marie Curie, and…

Leaves out: Mayans and their calendar
- marvelous piece of scientific work done before

George Washington Carver
- eat peanut butter? Thank him!

we live in a world now where Google is a verb

[I LOVE THAT STATEMENT]

Our oldest daughter went to school in the US, and had never experienced the beauty of mathematics
- then saw a fractal model on my computer

We have been cutting back on hand’s-on science instruction
- we have got to do something about that

Look at San Francisco Bay Area Schools in 2000 (Lawrence Hall of Science study)
- schools in the heart of Silicon Valley
- minutes per week on science, K-5
20% spending 60-180 minutes
64% spending 60 minutes or less
16% no time

WOW

If this is the nexus of creativity and technology

Lots of people think 3rd grade is really the critical one for getting kids excited and interested in science
- we’ve got to do something here

When we DO get around to teaching science, we rely on printed books

Problem with science textbooks
- by the time they are published, they are out of date

How do science textbooks get adapted? By infuriating as few people as possible
- so you write the most bland stuff you can get away with

this strips out all the arguments

too often science textbooks presents science as fait accompli

As a child of the October Sky, I was Very, very fortunate
- there were MANY resources being made available in schools and to the public at large
- one was called “Things of Science” for a $5 subscription
- this was my Christmas gift in 1957 from my Dad

this was COOL stuff
- by the time I got to high school I was ready!

Today you can do many of these things are free online
- PhET
- these are downloadable gadgets or you can run them online
- either flash or java applets

you can start to make observations about the relationships between mass and springs

Other examples: Explore Learning’s Gizmos
- allows teachers to customize their practice for how they want to approach science
- very powerful tools
- these are the kinds of things that give me hope

http://www.instructables.com/
- example: Napier’s Bones: Quickly Multiply, Wooden Style

- you can download instructionables in PDF format
- kids can post their own diy instructions
- this is powerful stuff

Ohio State Univ study
- Learning Science Facts Doesnt Boost Science Reasoning

- gave science fact tests and science reasoning tests to both Chinese and US students

inquiry is a process by which students ask and answer questions which go so far beyond what our textbooks can do and support, it is phenomenal

example: why is it that the rotation of the moon is exactly synchonized with the earth? (so we just see the one side of the moon)

- photograph of the back side of the moon
- look at the differenes between the photos

in Brazil, projects where kids design and machine their own rocket engines
- these kids are not thinking about subjects in silos (content areas)

Have you ever been to the playground and heard a kid say, “I was reading my science textbook the other day, and read this fascinating thing on page 263….”

We do a staff development on inquiry-based project learning
- example: teachers built a functional wind tunnel to test different nose cone designs

The importance of connecting science to other subjects
- when things are being taught in a vacuum it doesn’t make sense
- science fiction is a lovely connecting point for many kids
- the original Star Trek

Kristina Johnson of John Hopkins Univ: “Today’s problems are more complex… require more cross-disciplinary approaches…”

lots of focus on STEM projects seem to try and strengthen existing stove pipes (content areas) rather than connecting the stove pipes

by the end of sophomore year, 50% of Purdue’s entering engineering students have changed their majors

audience discussion
- many engineering schools lose MATH students not engineering students (kids don’t have the chops for the math courses which are required)

THAT JIVES WITH MY OWN EXPERIENCES WITH CALCULUS II

Great slide David is sharing on connections of Math, Science, Technology, and Engineering

they involve creativity/design, world of the ‘made’, scientific method, world of the ‘found’

somewhere kids need to see all of this at once

schools: MSCE

challenge:
- must go beyond learning ABOUT science, we must DO Science
- we must learn to see the beauty in science, not just in places like literature

it is all about authenticity
- give kids real things to do
- we’ve got authenticity here and beyond

remember the Star Trek tricorder?

PASCO’s Spark

40,000 dead satellites

give kids to play with real tools to solve real problems

any K12 can have their experiment on the ISS, costs 10K per kg

have found more than 2 dozen volcanoes on Io (moon of Jupiter)
- photo of scientist researching this

Who is going to replace here?
- her replacement is in our schools today

Story of Rip Van Winkle
- we have them every night when we go

websites like device (?) and instructables, good to see creative things happening

David’s materials: http://www.tcse-k12.org/futurework/

Futurework 2020: Futurework 2020 is a contest for students in Middle and High-school to anticipate the new kinds of jobs that will be available in the year 2020 that are not available today. In addition to defining the jobs, students will identify the skills that people will need to get one of these new jobs.

Technorati Tags:
david, thornburg, stem, science, technology, engineering, math, education, school, creativity, design

Landon Brockhert is a computer science student at the University of Central Oklahoma, and is the part-time paid computer/AV guru for our church in Edmond. Landon is the reliable guy behind the scenes who makes sure the SmartBoard is setup each Sunday morning when I teach 5th graders, and setup the SmartBoard each day this past fall for my Wednesday night adult classes on Google Earth and iTunes University. Landon ingeniously set up a program on a Windows computer in the church office which takes a high fidelity WAV format recording of a Sunday sermon, compresses it into a 32 kbps version, and uploads it via ftp to our church’s server, all with a few mouseclicks by our church secretary. From there, our church communications director links it up on a webpage for sermon podcasts and also links it to a feedburner RSS feed via a new Blogger post. Landon is a VERY smart guy.

Today after Sunday school, however, rather than talking about Smartboard setups or podcasting, Landon visited with my 11 year old son and I about some exciting computer programming he’s been doing for fun. This photo shows an $8 Radio Shack breadboard with LED lights which Landon has recently learned to create and program:

According to WikiPedia:

A breadboard (solderless breadboard, protoboard, plugboard) is a reusable solderless device used to build a (generally temporary) prototype of an electronic circuit and for experimenting with circuit designs. This is in contrast to stripboard (veroboard) and similar prototyping printed circuit boards, which are used to build more permanent prototypes or one-offs, and cannot easily be reused. A variety of electronic systems may be prototyped by using breadboards, from small circuits to complete central processing units (CPUs).

My son has a small and large snap circuit board kit, which is very simple but has given him some introductory opportunities to learn about electricity, circuits, current, and some other foundational ideas of electrical engineering. Although I took (and did pass) an introductory course on electrical engineering in college, I will readily admit that my own functional knowledge in this area is VERY limited. I know that hands-on learning, play and exploration in this area (with some supervision, of course, to try and keep things safe) could be VERY important in helping my kids cultivate both their own interests as well as their perceptions of their own skills in and among different content areas. I want my kids to perceive themselves as extremely capable and literate individuals, both in language arts and the social sciences as well as in hard science. Since neither my wife or I are professional scientists, this is a challenge, but I think opportunities to act like and be real scientists, forming and testing hypotheses through experimentation, can go a long way toward advancing these goals with my own kids. With these ideas in mind, I was very interested and enthused to see and learn about what Landon shared today.

This image shows a different breadboard and processor Landon has purchased and programmed, which is outfitted with a small LCD screen which costs about $20. The chips Landon is using cost between $2 and $7 each. The smaller of the two is shown on the image below, and is a “AT MIL” chip from AT Mega Chips. Landon orders most of his equipment from Mauser.

This image is a close-up of the LCD screen. The screen itself is about $15, the backlight (which Landon chose as blue) costs $5:

This picture shows the soldering job Landon did to connect the LCD screen to a circuit board, following the wiring schematic which came with the screen:

Landon explained to Alexander and I that some of the small integrated chips like those he’s using for these mini-computers have built-in translators which can be used to display ASII text. The ones he is using, however, do not, so he wrote his own program to convert a particular font into binary code. This photo shows some of those code sequences on his laptop screen. This literally makes the letter “a” display correctly on the LCD screen:

Landon has not written all this binary code by hand, however. He has written a VisualBasic program which takes simple two-color graphics he creates in PhotoShop, and then writes the binary code required to display them on the LCD screen. He then copies that code into the C++ program, and uses the open source program WinAVR to compile the C++ code into binary code which can then be transferred from his computer into the ROM memory on the flash-based circuit processor.

The flash-based circuit processors Landon is using on these two breadboards have 64K of ROM, and 4K of RAM. It strikes me as amazing that the computers NASA was using for the Gemini and Apollo space programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s had 64K of RAM. ____ , a Gemini and Apollo program flight engineer for NASA, mentioned this when I interviewed him recently for a podcast. Just think of it: The computational power of NASA’s best computer when we landed on the moon, now available for anyone to order online for just $7 US. Amazing.

I encouraged Landon to create some YouTube videos documenting what he’s created and learned using these breadboards and electronic components, and he said he’s considering setting up a blog or other website. (I recommended using Wordpress or Blogger.) Over the holidays, he may get together with another friend who is wanting to use homegrown electronics like this to create custom LED blinkers for his motorcycle. If possible, I told Landon I’d love to record a short video we could post to YouTube in which he explains the components, products, and processes he’s used to create both of these electronic circuits.

My professional career track has taken me away from work in programming, elementary circuit design, and robotics, but as I mentioned earlier I really want to learn more about these applications for the sake of my own kids. I’d also like to encourage others to pursue hands-on learning opportunities in these areas too, of course. That is one of the reasons I keep a link to the free Scratch programming environment at the top of my blog.

Thanks to Bob Sprankle initially sharing a podast recording of Dr. Mitch Resknik at BLC07, and hearing Dr. Resnick present at NECC 2008 this past summer, I’ve heard a little about his company PicoCricket. PicoCricket manufactures circuit boards which permit students to more easily do some of the things Landon has used inexpensive electronic components to do, like turn on lights and output data to a display, but with simpler user interfaces. The PicoCricket devices also include and interface with more advanced input devices, like sensors, so the output of those devices can be utilized by software programs. A PicoBoard costs $50, and actually permits learners of any age who create a program in Scatch to interface their program with Scratch programs.

Last summer at NECC, in addition to hearing Dr. Resnik discuss Scratch and PicoCricket, I also interviewed a representative from Lego about their new product “WeDo” scheduled for U.S. release in January 2009. “WeDo Robotics” include products designed for elementary students ages 7 - 11.

I’m not sure if Santa will be shopping at PicoCricket for our household this year or not, but if he does, I’m sure those gifts would “keep on giving” for a LONG time after the holidays are over!

Technorati Tags:
robotics, programming, radioshack, breadboard, lego, wedo, circuit, electronic

This podcast features an interview from November 2008 with Oklahoman Tom Weichel, who served as a flight engineer for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the 1960s and in 1970 for the Gemini and Apollo space programs. Tom was at mission control in Houston for both Apollo 11, the first successful moon landing mission, as well as Apollo 13, which was nearly a tragedy. Many thanks to Daniel Moore, who introduced me to Tom and arranged for this interview. Tom has worked with Daniel at the Caddo Kiowa Technology Center in Fort Cobb, Oklahoma. To encourage and inspire a new generation of engineers, scientists, and mathematicians Tom believes educators must help students take a more HANDS ON approach to learning. He relates that growing up on a farm, fixing things, and learning figure things out was an important part of his childhood. It was inspiring to visit with Tom and hear about his experiences with NASA firsthand. The NASA programs leading up to and including the Apollo program are some amazing chapters in our global history books.

 

 Podcast294: An Interview with NASA Flight Engineer Tom Weichel discussing Gemini, Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 [54:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1441)

Show Notes:

1. NASA (WikiPedia)
2. NASA Official website
3. NASA Gemini Program (WikiPedia)
4. NASA Apollo Program (WikiPedia)
5. NASA Apollo 11 Mission (WikiPedia)
6. NASA Apollo 13 Mission (WikiPedia)
7. 1983 Movie “The Right Stuff” (WikiPedia)
8. 1995 Movie “Apollo 13″ (WikiPedia)
9. 2005 IMAX Movie “Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D” (WikiPedia)
10. Caddo Kiowa Technology Center, Fort Cobb, Oklahoma
11. Project Lead the Way (STEM curriculum)
12. Mission Accomplished: India fifth in world to reach moon (15 Nov 2008)
13. Celebrate Oklahoma Voices (oral history and digital storytelling project)

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

Receive an email alert whenever a new Speed of Creativity podcast is published!

I had a wonderful day today sharing and learning at the TechCon 2008 conference in Naperville, Illinois, just outside Chicago. If the 36+ pages of backchannel chat conversations are any indication, it would appear a lot of dialog and discussion took place as a result of the presentations and networking opportunities afforded by the conference! This was the first time I’ve setup a Chatzy room for use by all the participants at an educational technology conference to use as a space for backchannel discussions, and I think it worked VERY well. I created the Chatzy room (for free) the evening prior to the conference, but created a TinyURL for everyone to use (tinyurl.com/techcon08) so it would be easy to get to. I created the room with a simple password also, to demonstrate the way Chatzy access can be limited and controlled. We ended up having over 60 different people login to the chat and participate during the course of the day, but not all were face-to-face attendees at TechCon.

I was impressed that about half the attendees brought laptops to the conference! There were some wireless network options in the hotel, but I wasn’t able to connect to any of them prior to my keynote, so I connected to the AT&T cellular network with my 3G data card and then shared that connection openly with participants. I’ve used this configuration previously with my family members on trips and in the car, but this was the first time to do this at a conference event. It worked well.

I’ve created a wiki link for the Gabcast voice reflections shared by participants, the VoiceThread I created at the end of the day in the closing session integrating many of those reflections, and links to my own presentation materials.

I posted about fifty photos from today as a new Flickr set. Here are a few of the highlights.

It was great to see, briefly visit, and hear presentations from both Charlene Chausis and David Jakes today.

I was also glad to meet Ben Grey, a former teacher and now technology director in Barrington, Illinois, who is the proud new owner (he actually got it yesterday) of a BRAND new MacBook Pro. It was/is very slick looking.

Here’s his computer with our conference Chatzy backchannel displayed:

Several folks were proudly using a few different mini-laptops as well. This one is from ACER:

This was a EeePC:

I didn’t see anyone running Linux today, however, and no one had an OLPC. I should have brought mine, but I didn’t think to before I left home.

This is one of my favorite photos of the day: Administrators in my session “Guidelines & Instructional Applications for Cell Phone Use @ School” using Gabcast to record some reflections about their learning points during the day:

All our Gabcast-recorded reflections (there are currently 14) are available on the free Gabcast channel I set up for the TechCon08 conference. At the start of my keynote I asked how many people had laptops, pencils or pens, and cell phones. I shared the toll free number for Gabcast, our channel number and password, and had participants write it down. Then during the day people recorded reflections. Many of these were recorded during my session on cell phones for learning, but others were recorded at different times. I suspect the experience of actually using GabCast firsthand was memorable for participants.

I was a little concerned that my keynote and presentations at the conference were a little too curriculum-focused for the audience, which included technology directors, principals and superintendents, but also included CTOs and business office administrators. The ideas seemed to be well received, and feedback was positive, but I still wonder.

I did learn some sad news about the fate of the technology immersion pilot initiative in Illinois. The project lost funding after two years, and evidently the evaluation phase which was to begin in year three never started. Politics, politics. Because the laptops purchased for the immersion pilot all have Absolute tracking and theft recovery software installed on them project administrators know exactly where all the laptops are (thanks to WiFi triangulation technologies) and the fact that over 1000 of them are not being used AT ALL currently. In some participating schools, lots of bureaucratic roadblocks stopped the laptops from being even rolled out to teachers and students until March of the first school year they were to be deployed, and the professional development plan teacher-leaders from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy were prepared to share never was fully implemented.

On a positive note, I did learn about a great Ning social network for Illinois administrators created and managed by Rich Voltz, the IASA Associate Director:

As I shared in the opening keynote for the conference, for many topics our peers are our best assets when it comes to ongoing learning. It’s great to see so many Illinois educators are finding ways to bring the power and benefits of social networking technologies directly to administrators. Hopefully positive experiences with these social networking environments will eventually “trickle-down” as more open policies for moderated social networking environments being available for teachers and students in Illinois schools.

My other two blog recommendations for administrators which I didn’t mention in my sessions but should have are LeaderTalk and The EdJurist blog. Of course I did share and promote participation in the free K-12 Online Conference, which has already started with the pre-conference keynote and gets underway fully this coming Monday. I didn’t get to the slides for K12Online08 in my keynote but did talk it up in my closing session.

One of many highlights from today was meeting and visiting with James Gerry of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, who was formerly the school’s chief technology officer but now is heading up a new group focused on creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and designing a new collaborative space at the school to foster creativity. I didn’t know previously the inventors of both PayPal and YouTube are IMSA graduates. Many IMSA grads work for Google. James recently visited Google to gather ideas about how to design the new collaboration and creativity spaces at IMSA. He worked at Bell Labs for ten years, so he certainly has a fantastic background to lead a team which is imagineering new learning spaces for schools. I’ll publish my interview with James here soon as a podcast.

To learn more about IMSA, besides visiting their website I’d recommend listening to my podcast interview at NECC 2008 with Scott Swanson and April Hope. IMSA’s website byline is:

Igniting and nurturing creative, ethical scientific minds that advance the human condition.

Does that sound like a GREAT place to teach and learn or what? I hope the next time I’m in the Chicago area I’ll be able to bring at least one of my kids to IMSA for a visit and tour. The idea of one of my kids not living at home for high school does NOT appeal to me at all, but who can say where creativity and innovation in a school like IMSA could lead? The sky’s the limit.

Many thanks to all the educators in Illinois at TechCon08 for a fantastic day of learning!

Technorati Tags:
techcon, techcon08, illinois, chicago, technology, school, education, conference, socialnetworking, 1to1, onetoone, laptop, pilot, project, imsa, science

From time to time over lunch during the week when I’m not eating with others, I’ve started to watch a TedTalk video on my iPhone. I’ve subscribed to TedTalks in iTunes for at least the past year, and am frequently amazed by the ideas, talent, creativity, and stories of the presenters. Most recently I’ve “had lunch” in this way with Clay Shirkey and Alan Kay.

I first heard about Clay Shirkey from Will Richardson, who led an unconference session at EdubloggerCon 2008 in San Antonio on his most recent book. (Unfortunately I couldn’t attend because of the scheduling of sessions there, I would have loved to listen and participate in a book discussion led by Will.) Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration is a thought provoking TedTalk focusing on the power and potential of social media tools and technologies like tagging to permit collaboration in transformative ways which would have either been impossible or cost-prohibitive for institutions in the past.

Among other ideas, I found Clay’s observations regarding citizen journalism versus traditional journalism to be most thought provoking. He points out that journalism was an answer to a need: How to disseminate and share information about events. It is very exciting to be living in such a time of transition when we see old paradigms of information dissemination giving way to new models. Clay points out that the printing press ushered in an era of chaos, for approximately 200 years, which broke the Catholic Church’s control over ideas, information and lives. He predicts about 50 years of chaos which is being introduced by what I call “publish at will” technologies. I certainly need to add Clay’s book to my future reading list. It is great to get a taste of his perspectives via this TedTalk.

Alan Kay is an amazing computer scientist and educator who I first heard speak in person at EduComm in June of 2007. His TedTalk, “A powerful idea about teaching ideas,” includes a similar demonstration to the one he shared at EduComm using the software environment Squeak to help students learn basic (but complex even for many adults) concepts about acceleration, physics and mathematics. I’m looking forward to sharing this with my kids, especially since the video of Alan’s demonstration on the screen is such high-quality. Oh how I yearn for experiences like those Alan shared “doing science” for my own children!

If you haven’t looked at the AMAZING selection of video presentations available on the TedTalk video podcast channel ever or recently, you definitely should. What a treasure trove! With videos like these on one’s iPod or iPhone, 20 minutes of learning about powerful ideas is always just a click away in my pocket! Subscribe to the TED blog to stay up-to-date on new additions!

Technorati Tags:
shirkey, kay, clay, alan, tedtalk, ted, science, organization, tagging, video

This podcast is an interview with Lars of Lego Education on the vendor floor at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, discussing the recently announced “WeDo Robotics” product designed for elementary students ages 7-11. According to the official Lego Education press release, WeDo Robotics “redefines classroom robotics, making it possible for primary school students 7-11 years of age to build and program their own solutions. Bridging the physical world, represented by LEGO models, and the virtual world, represented by computers and programming software, LEGO Education WeDo Robotics provides a hands-on, minds-on learning experience that actively involves young students in their own learning process and promotes children’s creative thinking, teamwork, and problem-solving skills – skills that are essential in the workplace of the 21st century.” Unlike the Lego NXT robotics kits, WeDo robot models remain tethered to the laptop computer running the iconic software program which controls the robot. WeDo is being released in North America in January 2009, and its software program runs on Macintosh OS X, Windows, and the XO Laptop’s “skinny Linux” operating system.

 

 Podcast267: A Discussion about Lego WeDo Robotics at NECC 2008 (Coming in January 2009 to North America) [20:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1707)

Show Notes:

1. Official WeDo Robotics press release from Lego Education (30 June 2008)
2. Additional videos and informational publications from Lego about WeDo Robotics
3. Lego Education
4. Lego Club (one of my 10 year old son’s favorite websites)
5. Lego NXT Robotics (Mindstorms)
6. Photo taken during Mitch Resnik’s NECC 2008 Preso: Movie of kids in Brazil using new Lego “WeDo” product on XO laptops
7. Paul Schwan’s 5th Grade Classroom website (Fort Myers, Florida)

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

Receive an email alert whenever a new Speed of Creativity podcast is published!

Technorati Tags: lego, robot, robotics, creativity, design, math, science, program, programming, necc, necc08, necc2008

These are my notes from Tim Gore and Jim Sturm’s presentation at MODLA 2008 titled “RoundTrips: Interactive Video Conferencing from Anywhere.” I am recording this session with their permission and will post it subsequently as a podcast here. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Their website is roundtrips.org.

The official conference program description for this session was:

The project directors of RoundTrips, two teachers from the School District of Clayton, describe the wide curricular variety of their videoconferencing programs and show how their portable satellite transmitter and videoconferencing/webcasting studio helps students explore a wide range of topics as they connect live to people and places across the country. Distance education, in a live format, has usually been regulated to an inside wired environment. However, we know that much of what occurs of interest for students and teachers in real time happens where wires don’t exist. Because of satellite technology, wires no longer limit us. The goal of RoundTrips is to extend classroom curriculum for students and teachers to places they could not normally go and on that journey to create an interactive environment coupled with sound educational pedagogy. The presentation will include both demonstration and discussion. Demonstrations will focus on how teachers with video conferencing equipment or web access can take advantage of the wide range of RoundTrips adventures. Examples of these adventures from science to social studies and arts to literature can be found on the project’s website at http://www.roundtrips.org. Featured discussion topics will focus on the educational value, creative use, and best practices of video conferencing. Brainstorming and discussion will also consider participants’ interest in curricular applications utilizing the satellite transmitter and other non-satellite RoundTrips offerings.

We do live streaming of all videoconferences and also archive them

The last 3 years of our teaching life was quite different from the 20+
Our classroom became the Lewis and Clark Trail
- grant from the National Park Service
- got the satellite transmitter as a result of that grant

In the course of those years we did 130 programs

we had never done videoconferencing in a classroom environment before deciding to do this project
- originally we
- Bob Dixon at Ohio State was building these mobile trailers (fall of 2003)
- Aug 31, 2003 was our first program, we received our equipment on Aug 25, 2003

lesson: don’t tell people the date when you REALLY need things, tell them at least a week in advance

our trailer
- at optimal speeds, our trailer is 512 up, 1.5 MB down
- the satellite company, Tacheon, has been great for 4 years but now they are oversubscribing and starting to cache

transmitter lets us videoconference and webstream from anywhere
- our idea is that kids should really be able to go places that bring the curriculum to live, LIFE
- story of a project they just did in the badlands
- mules had to pull the transmitter the final mile to the dig where archeologists were excavating part of a t-rex skeleton

Jim talked about programs being authentic, I (Tim) also see them as ripe for disaster
- after all this is LIVE TV!

story of deer camp
- lessons all about inquiry, scientific method, etc.
- deer were supposed to be tranquilized
- ended up wrestling a deer who wasn’t responding to

situation taught the students how experiments don’t always work, things can go wrong
- you have to think on your feet
- students learned a lot about scientific inquiry

Univ of Missouri Ag Dept got an NSF grant to create a solid-state mobile web cam to mount it on a deer, to have a live deer cam

We seek funding from other sources in addition to the Clayton school district
- because of that funding we get to provide these programs free
- we are scheduled for many trips in 2008-2008
- we also schedule trips that are requested by teachers, in Clayton but also in other locations

One of the coolest things about our job now is cold calling people and see
- 9 out 10 times the people we are talking with have never done videoconferencing before

can buy the trailer we have for about $48,000
- has its own build-in, quiet generater
- can go 60 hours or so
- 8 hours of battery built-in
- has big switch to plug in multiple computers
- came with wireless links, can transmit several thousand feet

$400-$500 per month is being charged by Tacheon now for the satellite connectivity
- easily gets to $5000 per year

once we are up and running from a particular location

we limit to no more than 3 or 4 remote sites
- 4 is pushing it

We started wtih 75 minute shows and 6 schools per session
- we realized 75 minutes was way too long
- 6 schools was too long

Our timeframe is 60 min at max
- sometimes 30
- only 1 or 2 schools is best, they really get to be interactive
- you get to see those inter

We provide prep materials for every program we do
- basic info about the program and the setting
- many times those materials come from the hosting organization
- we also think as teachers, what do I want to have as a teacher before my kids do this activity

example: hydroelectric dam where the turbans had been pulled out
- kids in the classroom had been making their own engines with coils, generators
- kids had really developed good background knowledge with their hands-on projects which pre-ceeded the videoconference

MOREnet does the bridging for these videoconferences

Have worked with CSD and their own channel, HECtv, haven’t done live broadcast
- TV stations have Polycom units and signal runs out the composite video signals and audio into their systems
- in St Louis metro region all our programs run live on tv, so students and teachers can either watch on TV and email in questions

Used Marratech in the past with a live chatroom for some programs
- Marratech works very well through school district firewalls
- client side software is free, point to point is free
- Marratech has worked well with us

some of programs work where kids come ready to present about a topic (we’re sharing research about topic X and then learn more things about experts about that)
- we also request that if kids have advance questions that have popped into their minds based on background materials, email those to us with the name of the child you’d like us to prompt to ask that question
- that works well for questions
- we also have spontaneous questions, as moderator I have to keep that balanced
- we keep a rotation, same order of schools
- sometimes do 2 questions per school in the rotation
- on the student side, it works well if the teacher sets up a place for the students to go

we send advance materials discussing protocols
- there is a lag
- we say some things to buy some time

we realized: stop thinking about this as being the “be all end all” on this topic
- this may be a starting activity, a culminating activity, an enrichment activity
- hopefully there will be more learning that continues after the session
- there needs to be a strong sense of organization from the agenda perspective for the classroom teacher (obviously event schedule modifications happen)

Archived past sessions are available online

The moderator does have a wireless earpiece
- inexpensive, camcorder mic stuff
- lets moderator

we have evaluations after each program
- we tend to get much more evaluations back than other people report getting
- teacher and student evals (both are equally important)

what do kids like best?
- fascinating that they can do the experience
- to talk to someone in another area is great
- lots of comments about interactivity with REAL people, REAL experts who are in the know
- the opportunity to share what they have done (as students) is also very engaging

structure of each program vary based on content

example this year for Constitution day
- kids get materials
- very discussion and Q&A orientation

Fine Arts / Artists at work
- students will be interacting with artists who are actually creating

We use Azden mics like you use with a camcorder, have a 16 channel mixer we put our inputs into

we have 280 feet of cable to the trailer (used to be 300′)

work with Truman library

Have 100′ of S video cable to roam with at events
- our wireless connectivity options didn’t work as well, so we stay wired when roaming at events

Have done multiple shows in Monroeville, Alabama where “To Kill a Mockingbird” was set, program is “Of Monroeville and Mockingbirds”
- Greatest part of our videoconferences was the people who grew up with Harper Lee and told about stories of her growing up

Can mail you a DVD

record now to DV tape because of high quality, we didn’t like the quality of the compressed recorded video

other units are in
- ESC10 Abilene TX
- Broward, FL
- Bering Straits, Alaska

We had a phenomenal experience just connecting 3rd graders in Clayton, Missouri, to 3rd graders in Kenya

Most audiences have been grades 4-8
- nature of the school day for middle school and elementary is more conducive for this
- high school bell schedules are not as conducive for programs like this

Technorati Tags:
modla, modla08, modla2008, lewisandclark, video, videoconferencing, webcast, fieldtrip, virtual, virtualfieldtrip

In less than 4 hours, the space shuttle Discovery (STS-124) is scheduled to launch into outer space! (At 5:02 p.m. EDT)

Watch the launch LIVE on NASA TV!

SpaceVidcast is a Ustream.tv channel where you can watch the launch as well, participate in an interactive text chat, and hear commentary leading up to, during and after the launch.

Broadcast powered by Ustream.TV

NASAspaceflight.com is a website about NASA launches and other activities that is recommended by SpaceVidcast, which has a lot of spaceflight videos available for on-demand playback.

Technorati Tags:
nasa, shuttle, launch, tv, watch, iptv, science, space

If you and your students think you face “high stakes” for standardized tests taken at school this year, consider the case of Daryl Atkins, whose life was literally on the line based on his repeated test performances. His story is instructive not only because of the heavy weight it shows our society sometimes places on test scores, but also because of what it suggests about intelligence and the ways we measure as well as cultivate its development.

Stephen Murdoch is the author of “IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea” and shared a presentation about IQ at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on April 16th, 2008. The complete video of his presentation is available from FORA.tv. I listened to a brief excerpt of it on my iPhone while driving in the car today, and several things Stephen said piqued my interest. (I subscribe to the free FORA.tv - Daily FORAcast (short form) podcast.)

According to WikiPedia:

An Intelligence Quotient or IQ is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests attempting to measure intelligence.

We’ve all heard of IQ tests and many of us have likely taken them, and/or had our students or our own children take them. As an aside, I remember that my mother (who was an educational diagnostician) would never tell me what my own IQ test score was. As I recall, I think that is because she didn’t want my perception of that score to shape my own ideas of my capabilities and intelligence. I’ve always been glad she made that decision, because I resonate with the idea that as a human being I can exceed the performance expectations and valuations which others may attempt to place upon me. This podcast reinforced that view, to a degree.

In his presentation, Stephen discussed the criminal law case of Daryl R. Atkins, which was ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002. During the series of trials which led to a ruling by the highest court in our land, Atkins repeatedly took IQ tests and his scores increased seventeen points over a period of several years. From a criminal defense and prosecution standpoint, this was very significant, since Atkins’ IQ score went from a 59 (below 70, which was considered “mildly mentally retarded”) to 76. With that score, Atkins was “competent to be put to death under Virginia law.” He was eventually sentenced to life in prison (rather than executed) for reasons other than his IQ test scores, but the stakes of his IQ tests could not have been higher.

Why did the IQ test scores of Daryl R. Atkins increase over time, when educational diagnosticians (at least those who are fervent disciples of IQ test integrity and value) might argue they should not have done so? Stephen Murdoch suggests that perhaps:

1. The more times Atkins took the IQ test, the better he got at the test, because he become more experienced and used to the test. (Does this sound familiar in states which have been subjecting students to high stakes testing for years?)
2. Atkins may have actually received a better and more worthwhile (authentic) education during the years of his trials and trial preparation than he received in formal school environments, and those experiences actually helped him to become smarter.

I find both these suggestions worth pondering. I had a conversation this past weekend with someone who staunchly defended the regime of high stakes testing in Texas and now across the United States thanks to NCLB, because “clearly they have raised test scores.” My response was, even if the test scores have improved, what does that really MEAN? Have the drop out rates gone down? What can the students who are graduating from our schools actually DO in terms of their skills? How can we place faith in aggregate test scores, when the tests themselves are highly variable state-to-state and are regularly changing even within most states?

Conclusions about aggregate test scores are different than conclusions about an individual’s test scores, however, and this case DOES seem to suggest that something significant had taken place cognitively with Atkins over the course of his criminal trials. I found Murdoch’s second suggestion quite thought provoking as well. Perhaps a criminal trial procedure provided Atkins with more opportunities to develop his vocabulary and capacity to both understand and communicate in our world than his years of formal educational had. What expectations did Atkins’ teachers have of him, being “the student in the room with a 59 IQ?” When I taught fourth grade, one year I taught a student who also had an officially measured IQ of less than 70. I was told, “He is too low to qualify for special education.” It was a real challenge to help him stay engaged and focused in class, but I think the fact that he had regular opportunities to learn with and interact with other students his age was a great benefit. Mainstreaming is not always beneficial for every child with special needs, but often (as the law prescribes) the “least restrictive environment” for children is the one with the most educational opportunities. Whether in a mainstreamed or pullout classroom setting, however, I think the EXPECTATIONS of the teacher are critical in shaping the sorts of learning and interactive opportunities to which students are given access. I am a big fan of real-world problems solving contexts and project-based learning environments for students. Whether classified as “gifted and talented,” “special needs,” or “too low to qualify,” I think all people learn best in real-world contexts where the relevance of learning tasks is immediately apparent rather than elusive and simply theoretical. This is a key element of constructionist learning, as I understand it. Let’s not just talk about things in theoretical terms, let’s actually make things. Let’s make stuff. In making “stuff” together, particularly in engineering solutions to problems and challenges which learners can readily understand and relate, learning becomes much more situated and therefore impactful.

The final issue raised in this presentation excerpt from Stephen Murdoch regards the issue of “cognitive development.” For years, from what I understand, scientists and doctors believed that the number neurons in our brains was finite, and as we grew older we we progressively lost more and more brain capacity. This is a pretty depressing conclusion, but it is one most scientists and doctors held for years.

Today, however, we understand that neuroplasticity means our brains are far more flexible than we had previously believed to adapt and change. Even when we are very old, our brains still have the capacity to make new neural connections as we are exposed to novel experiences and have opportunities to experience growth via different experiences, especially cognitive dissonance. In his presentation, Stephen Murdoch stated that it is ridiculous for elite private schools to use IQ tests on young children to measure their actual and potential intelligence, because those young people are still experiencing “cognitive development.” If I am understanding current brain research and ideas like neuroplasticity correct, however, it seems that none of us are ever entirely “finished” with our cognitive development unless we choose to stop learning, or we are placed in such a controlling and limiting environment that continuing cognitive development is impossible. (Solitary confinement in prison for years might qualify.)

I have read and heard that average IQ scores have been rising around the world for many years, but the jury is out about “why?” Perhaps our access to greater levels of information and new ideas is permitting us, as adults, to continue our cognitive development beyond the levels which were “normal” for the everyday citizen (as opposed to a cultural elite) in previous eras? I’m not sure. In any event, I certainly found Stephen Murdoch’s presentation excerpt to be thought provoking, and I look forward to hopefully hearing his entire presentation online or on my portable audio and video player sometime soon.

As the recently released North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) report “Blended Learning: The Convergence of Online and Face-to-Face Education” concludes, blended learning is one of the only instructional reform proposals which can genuinely help educators reclaim the #1 most precious resource in their day today: TIME. I was not in San Francisco in April to hear Stephen Murdoch share this presentation, but I was able to hear part of his message today in my car as I drove across the plains of central Oklahoma. It is a blessing and a gift to live in our present age of digitally-powered blended learning experiences. The educational and learning opportunities which lie before us are astounding to both contemplate and personally experience. Armed with content like this lecture from FORA.tv, I’m sure my own cognitive development can continue indefinitely as long as my physical body cooperates. The web is empowering new opportunities for distributed learning which prior generations of educators, learners, and leaders likely never imagined were possible. This environment is ours to both enjoy and to shape.

It is no understatement to say we’re on an incredible journey.

Technorati Tags:
iq, intelligence, court, atkins, murdoch, stephenmurdoch, learning, expectations, distributed, FORA, foratv, distributedlearning

“Meet the Robinsons” is one of my favorite movies for many reasons. The way in which the film celebrates creativity, innovation, and perseverance in the face of difficult circumstances is wonderful. Louis, the hero, is an aspiring science fair inventor, who eventually realizes his dreams and creates (or discovers) inventions which help shape the world into better, greener, and more beautiful forms.

In Ontario, Canada, 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd may be a real-life Lewis Robinson. According to Brandon Keim writing on the Wired blog, Burd conducted experiments for his science fair project which “isolated the microbial munchers” which can make plastic decompose in three months rather than thousands of years.

What a fantastic discovery! Kudos to you, Daniel! May your science fair project launch you, like Lewis Robinson, into a successful and rewarding career as a scientist, engineer and inventor! We desperately need your assistance NOW.

Here’s my suggestion for your next project: Nuclear fusion at room temperature. Naysayers will tell you it can’t be done, but don’t believe them. You CAN do it. Keep moving forward!

Thanks to Sarah Trabucchi for bringing Daniel’s achievement to my attention!

Technorati Tags:
science, fair, invention, discovery, project, experiment, plastic, decompose, inspirational, engineering, meettherobinsons, fusion