Earlier this week the Girl Scouts, which turns 100 this year, released an interesting report on teenage girls’ attitudes toward science and math. Some highlights: 74 percent of girls ages 14 to 17 report an interest in science, technology, engineering or math (known as STEM) Parents play a major role in getting their kids interested [...]

A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute paints a grim picture of state science standards across the United States. But it also reveals some intriguing details about exactly what’s going wrong with the way many American students are learning science. Standards are the foundation upon which educators build curricula, write textbooks and train [...]

In his State of the Union address last night, President Barack Obama spent less time than in years past discussing his ambitions to reform science education. He referred to his administration’s offer to let states opt out of  No Child Left Behind (” … grant schools flexibility to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching [...]

Imagine walking through a science museum and, among the usual displays of dinosaur bones, butterflies, and amphibians you come upon a series of windows into state-of-the-art research labs. Inside, scientists from nearby universities and veterinary schools work on projects related to biodiversity, genetics, nanoparticles, and animal health and welfare.  In front of each window is [...]

How does a bridge work? Here’s a simple activity for kids that demonstrates the principles that keep bridges standing: all you need is a bowl or plastic container, a small sheet of paper, and a few pennies (or a few small toys). Ask your child (or children) how they might fold the paper so it would bridge [...]

Tonight PBS airs the second of its four part series “Fabric of the Cosmos,” (9 pm ET/PT) based on the bestselling book by Columbia physicist and mathematician Brian Greene. He spoke with Budding Scientist about the NOVA series, which aims to demystify such concepts as multiple universes and bring viewers up to date on the [...]

Got a Jack-O-Lantern that’s past its prime? In the story below, Rose Eveleth reports on one creative way of tossing it. David Bodmer is the Robotics Engineering teacher at Mt. Olive High School in Flanders, New Jersey. Every year he leads a team of students in a nation-wide robotics competition. But last year they started [...]

Every two years, the Nation’s Report Card test results come out and remind us how much better most American students should be doing in math (and reading, but I’m going to focus just on math here). The press release accompanying this year’s results, announced just a few hours ago by the Department of Education, emphasizes [...]

Watching a Monarch butterfly flit past the 9th floor windows of our Manhattan offices the other day reminded me that the annual fall migration is in full swing. And with that thought came another: the end of summer need not spell the end of outdoor entomology projects. On a recent trip to Western Massachusetts, I [...]

Molly Josephs, who teaches 5th, 7th and 9th grade biology at The Dalton School in Manhattan, wrote to me recently about the educational value of nature films for kids. “I would love to write something about the power, intelligence, and importance of nature films for families to watch together in order to cultivate curiosity and [...]