Wednesday, October 27, 2010

RET Networking Meeting at NSTA - Travel Awards Available

RET Networking Meeting at NSTA
San Francisco 2011


Travel awards are available for current and former RET's to participate in the annual RET Networking Meeting and Poster Session at NSTA on March, 9th 2011.

Please complete the on-line application http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/nsta2011s if you are interested in attending either meeting. Travel awards in the amount of $1,000 will be distributed at the meeting. Registration costs will also be covered for those invited to participate. Both sessions will be held at the Hilton at Union Square.

NSF Research Experiences for Teachers Network Meeting
1 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

This informal session provides an opportunity for networking among former RET participants and program administrators representative of a variety of programs and geographic locations across the country. Session participants will share information regarding their RET experience, classroom connections, successes, and obstacles "back in the classroom"; and discusses useful professional development and other programmatic strong points.

Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Poster Session
3/19/2009 3:45 – 5:00 PM

Teacher Research Programs, found at many universities throughout the country, are changing the face of science education in the United States and abroad. Please join in the discussion regarding this powerful professional development program and share your story with the RET community.

Please visit http://www.nsta.org to register for conference details.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Next Great Science Exhibition

The Next Great Science Exhibition - Museum of Science
https://gw.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9719645

TAGS: Public Good, Business/Entrepreneurship, Ideation
AWARD: $8,000 USD | DEADLINE: 10/27/10 | ACTIVE SOLVERS: 410 | POSTED: 9/27/10
The Museum of Science, Boston is looking for creative concepts for the next great large-scale science and/or technology exhibition. This is an Ideation Challenge with a guaranteed award for at least one submitted solution.

Source: InnoCentive Challenge ID: 9719645

Challenge Overview
The Museum of Science, Boston is looking for creative concepts for the next great large-scale science and/or technology exhibition that will debut in Boston and then travel to science museums both in the U.S. and around the world.

This is an Ideation Challenge, which has the following specific features:

There is a guaranteed award. The awards will be paid to the best submissions as solely determined by the Seeker. The total payout may reach $8,000, of which $5,000 will be paid to the best submission and $2,000 and $1,000 may be paid to two additional submissions.

The Solvers are not required to transfer exclusive intellectual property rights to the Seeker. Rather, by submitting a proposal, the Solvers grants to the Seeker a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive license to practice the idea submitted for this Challenge.

The Seeker will complete the review process and make a decision after the Challenge deadline. All Solvers that provide a submission will be notified about the status of their submission; however, no detailed evaluation of individual submissions will be provided.

What is InnoCentive?
InnoCentive is the global innovation marketplace where creative minds solve some of the world's most important problems for cash awards up to $1 million. Commercial, governmental and humanitarian organizations engage with InnoCentive to solve problems that can impact humankind in areas ranging from the environment to medical advancements.

What is InnoCentive IdeationTM Challenge?

An InnoCentive Ideation™ Challenge is a broad question formulated to obtain access to new ideas, similar to a global brainstorm for producing a breakthrough idea or market survey which may include ideas for a new product line, a new commercial application for a current product, or even a viral marketing idea to recruit new customers. Ideation™ Challenge submissions are typically about two written pages, and Seekers receive a non-exclusive, perpetual license to use all submissions.

In an Ideation™ Challenge, Solvers may:

Submit ideas of their own
Submit third party information that they have the right to use and further the authority to convey that right and the right to use and develop derivative works to Seekers
Submit information considered in the public domain without any limitations on use.

Solvers should not reveal any confidential information in their submissions. Often the Ideation™ Challenge will be followed by one or more of the other three Challenge types to further develop the ideas and gain Intellectual Property protection when the concept has been well-defined.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Skills for America's Future

Today, President Obama announced the launch of a new initiative Skills for America’s Future - an effort to improve industry partnerships with community colleges to ensure that America’s community college students are gaining the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in the workforce.

In his remarks before the start of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) meeting today, President Obama laid the vision for Skills for America's Future program:

The idea here is simple: we want to make it easier to connect students looking for jobs with businesses looking to hire. We want to help community colleges and employers create programs that match curricula in the classroom with the needs of the boardroom.

We’ve already seen cases where this can work. Cisco, for example, has been working directly with community colleges to prepare students and workers for jobs ranging from work in broadband to health IT. And all over the country, we know that the most successful community colleges are those that partner with the private sector. So Skills for America’s Future would help build on these success stories by connecting more employers, schools, and other job training providers, and helping them share knowledge about what practices work best. The goal is to ensure that every state in the country has at least one strong partnership between a growing industry and a community college. Already, companies from UTC to Accenture to the GAP have announced their support for this initiative, as well as business leaders like my friend Penny Pritzker and the Aspen Institute’s Walter Isaacson. I hope other business leaders will follow suit, and I’m also setting up a taskforce to work directly with the business community on this effort.

The President also emphasized the importance investing in education as a means of investing in our long-term economic growth.

But what I won’t do is cut back on investments like education that are directly related to our long term economic performance. Now is not the time to sacrifice our competitive edge in the global economy. And that’s why I disagree so strongly with the proposal from some on the other side of the aisle to cut education by 20% in next year’s budget. It’s a cut that would eliminate 200,000 children from Head Start programs; a cut that would reduce financial aid for eight million college students; a cut that would leave community colleges without the resources they need to meet the goals we’ve talked about today. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

President Obama understands that the education and skills of the American workforce is crucial to our ability to compete in the global economy. That’s why the President has set a goal of having an additional 5 million community college degrees and certificates by 2020, and called on PERAB to develop new steps to ensure that those degrees and certificates will provide graduates with the skills they need to get ahead in their careers.

To respond to the President’s call, PERAB reached out to private sector employers, labor leaders, philanthropy organizations, and policy leaders within the Administration solicit their views on the workplace development challenges of the 21st century. Many employers identified public-private partnerships as one of the most effective ways to ensure that college graduates and certificate earners have the skills they need to be successful in the workforce.

The Skills for America’s Future initiative will match up the employers like PG&E, United Technologies, McDonald’s, Accenture and Gap Inc. with community colleges in every state to develop curricula and programs that will prepare graduates to excel in the workforce. To learn more about this initiative visit www.SkillsForAmerica.org.

Tomorrow, Dr. Jill Biden will host the first ever White House Summit on Community Colleges, an effort to bring together bring together community colleges, business, philanthropy, federal and state policy leaders, faculty and students to discuss how community colleges can help meet the job training and education needs of the nation’s evolving workforce. Leaders from the Skills for America’s Future will be leading a breakout session during the summit to discuss best practices for building robust, successful partnerships.

You can join the conversation as well, by submitting your ideas and comments in our online dialogue on community colleges. Visit WhiteHouse.gov/CommunityCollege to get started.