University of Kansas Center for Science Education

• promoting and improving K-12, undergraduate, and graduate STEM education,
• improving K-12 STEM teacher development, from recruitment and pre-service development to continuing professional development,
• reaching out to all citizens through informal education and research outreach, and
• developing and expanding innovative, interdisciplinary STEM education research.

Upcoming Events

• Nothing scheduled in the next 30 days.

Current Science Education News

• Two mathematics programs that make a difference - The University of Iowa mathematics graduate program and the Summer Institute in Mathematics for Undergraduates at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Humacao earn recognition from the American Mathematical Society.
• Bullying in middle school may lead to increased substance abuse in high school - Over the past decade, parents, educators and policy makers have become increasingly concerned about verbal and physical harassment in schools and the subsequent effects of peer victimization on teens. A recent study by Julie C. Rusby and colleagues from the Oregon Research Institute, published in the November 2005 issue of The Journal of Early Adolescence by SAGE Publications, found significant associations between peer harassment of students in middle school and a variety of problem behaviors, such as alcohol abuse, once these students reach high school.
• New Years Eve party tip - This New Years Eve almost everyone, including professional bartenders, will pour 20 to 30 percent more liquor into short, squat glasses than into tall, thin ones, finds a study by Cornell Professor Brian Wansink, published in the current December 24-31 issue of the British Medical Journal. Wansink thinks the vertical-horizontal optical illusion is the reason.
• University of Colorado student-built instrument set to launch on Pluto mission - The University of Colorado at Boulder's long heritage with NASA planetary missions will continue Jan. 17 with the launch of a student space dust instrument on the New Horizons Mission to Pluto from Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
• Scientifically based research needs to underpin education - In the new book "The No Child Left Behind Legislation: Educational Research and Federal Funding" (Information Age Pub., 2005), Cornell University Professor Valerie Reyna asserts that new mandates for scientifically based educational programs will improve education, and other experts challenge her.
• Annual joint mathematics meeting - Approximately 4500 mathematicians will attend the annual meetings of the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas, January 12-15. Researchers will present nearly 1700 papers from all specialties of mathematics. Themes of some sessions: the mathematics involved in popular culture, in sports and games, in the arts, current events in mathematics; and mathematics education reform.