MIT Media Lab - call for teachers to pilot test a new tool from Jen Groff Our colleague, Jen Groff, is seeking teachers to participate in her LearningGraph Project. The project is developing a range of tools to support educators as they develop problem-solving, computational thinking and systems thinking competencies in their students. She is seeking a small number of educators to pilot these tools in their classrooms and give feedback on how these tools can be improved.
Understanding Caribou Migrations via Drones and Models This article covers Andrew Berdahl;s work on understanding Caribou migrations in Alaska. By watching the herd from above, scientists got insights into how Caribou behave and whether or not they follow a leader on their journey across the ice flows.
Mapping Segregation in US Cities This interactive data visualization from the New York Times is a great way to introduce students to the issue of segregation using real-world data. It could be used to ground the Project GUTS unit on Segregation, and accompanying StarLogo Nova.
How One Small School District Embraces CS Education This is a fantastic article about how Computer Science education is embraced and supported in the small town of Melrose, NM. It highlights the work of Alan Dougherty (science teacher, and bus driver for the district) as he leads student teams to compete in the Supercomputing Challenge. Alan was a participant in the NM-CSforAll PD program and a past participant in Project GUTS PDs offered in concert with the Supercomputing Challenge.
Computational Thinking in Science - a new article by Peter Denning In this article, Peter Denning recounts the origin of computational science, a meld of computer science and science. He states "scientists who used computers found themselves routinely designing new ways to advance science. They became computational designers as well as experimenters and theoreticians" and "computational thinking emerged from within scientific fields—it was not imported from computer science.
Archeology and Agent-based Modeling The Smithsonian Institution published this new article on how agent-based modeling is being used to help scientists predict the future. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2018/03/01/convergence-may-help-scientists-predict-future
Teachers with GUTS presents at NSTA conference Teachers with GUTS presented at this year's National Science Teachers Association. Here's a description of our session:
Webinar on CT in interdisciplinary learning Project GUTS' director, Irene Lee, was a guest speaker on a webinar on "Unpacking CT and its role in Interdisciplinary Learning" Published on http://stelar.edc.org/events/stelar-webinar-unpacking-computational-thinking-cts-role-interdisciplinary-learning
Employers Increasingly Demand Computer Science Skills in Non-Tech Jobs A recent study by Burning Glass Technologies found that employers are seeking CS skills from applicants in jobs that aren't traditionally computing jobs. They call these jobs "hybrid jobs" that demand a mix of skills from different domains. For example, marketers are increasingly reliant on "big data" analytics to direct and manage their campaigns. Alison Derbenwick Miller, VP of Oracle Academy states "Living wage jobs in the future will require some level of CS knowledge.
Project GUTS at CSEdWeek Kickoff in San Mateo, CA This year, Paige Prescott and Sheena Vaidyanathan will be representing Project GUTS at the CS Ed Week Kickoff conference in San Mateo, CA. The organizers are expecting to have around 100 district administrators from all over the country at the event. Project GUTS will have a booth at the showcase to talk to attendees about how they can implement computer science in science at their schools/districts.
Data Science lesson for Hour of Code Project GUTS, in collaboration with the MIT AppInventor team and University of Massachusetts Lowell, have developed a Data Science activity for this year's Hour of Code. It's geared towards students in 6th grade and older and features crowd-sourced data collection through the Pop Culture app (on an Android phone) and data analysis in
Why CS Belongs in Every Science Classroom Project GUTS teacher and supporter Sheena Vaidyanathan wrote a terrific article for EdSurge on "Why Computer Science Belongs in Every Science Teacher's Classroom" (November 16, 2013). She focuses on data analysis and computer modeling and simulation as NGSS practices that can be "brought to life" with tools like StarLogo Nova. Project GUTS was recommended as a place to get
Project GUTS at To Code and Beyond - CSNYC Project GUTS participated on a panel at the To Code and Beyond conference on November 3, 2017 in New York City at the fabulous new Cornell Tech campus. The panel was on Integrating CS across the curriculum and featured lively discussion of the benefits and challenges involved.
MIT STEP/EA releases StarLogo Nova 2.0 MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program / Education Arcade is pleased to announce the release of StarLogo Nova 2.0, the long awaited HTML5/JavaScript version of StarLogo Nova. This new version contains many new features, easy to use interface elements, and fixes many previous issues encountered by the teachers in our community.
StarLogo Nova Team at MIT Expands The StarLogo Nova team at MIT is growing due to an influx of new projects and funding. In partnership with University of Pennsylvania, a grant called BioGraph 2.0 was funded by the National Science Foundation (DRK12 program) to extend the BioGraph resources to include an online PD course and community of practice.
Project GUTS partners with CSNYC and Tata Consulting Services to offer workshop Project GUTS partnered with CSNYC to offer a 3 day professional development workshop at Microsoft Times Square in NYC on August 28-30, 2017. This workshop, facilitated by Su Gibbs, Paige Prescott and Irene Lee, prepared NYC teachers to integrate the CS in Science curricular modules into regular school day science classes.
Santa Fe Design Workshop Participants Produce New Lessons This summer, a small but determined group of experienced Project GUTS teachers from Santa Fe, New Mexico met to share out some pedagogic changes they made to existing curriculum, and to create new curriculum to meet the needs of their students.
Project GUTS at NSTA STEM Forum and Expo Project GUTS has been on the road this summer, spreading the news about modelling and simulation!
Modeling and Mapping the Spread of the "Gangnam Style" video This article describes a research study that asked "Do viral videos spread in the same way as infectious diseases?" The study minimized the impact of geographical distance as a measure and looked at the linkages and spread of disease. They found that indeed the spread of a viral video had characteristics similar to the traditional "wave pattern" of contagion spread.
Girl Scouts of America Offers New STEM Badges The Girl Scouts of America are offering 23 new badges focused on STEM areas. In the photo is Sylvia Acevedo, right, CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA (and former NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist) from Las Cruces, NM! She says ""My troop leader looked at me and saw me looking at the stars, and she taught me that there were constellations, she taught me there were systems and patterns to the stars.
