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| June 2010 | Subscribe |
PREMIER SPONSOR |
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In This Issue:
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Sponsors:
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II. Congressional Hotline |
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IN HOUSE, 3RD TIME'S A CHARM FOR AMERICA COMPETES ACTThe House in late may finally passed the America COMPETES Act. The $85.6 billion measure would reauthorize the major non-defense research agencies for five years and set a variety of science and education policies intended to spur innovation. Two previous attempts to pass COMPETES had failed, despite it having support from major business lobbies. According to the National Journal, "Friday's winning floor-vote strategy by Democrats involved letting members first cast votes on nine portions of a GOP-sponsored motion to recommit that the House passed earlier this month, which prompted House leaders to pull the bill." The tactic restored the bulk of the bill's provisions that existed prior to the GOP motion, including new programs and the full five-year authorization, which Republicans had sought to cut back to three years. Seventeen Republicans joined Democrats in passing the bill. Its passage marked a triumph for Bart Gordon of Tennessee, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, who is retiring. According to a committee press release, "the bill puts basic research programs on a path to doubling authorized funding levels over 10 years" at the Department of Energy's Office of Science, National Science Foundation, and National Institute of Science and Technology labs. It also reauthorizes the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. Two GOP provisions survived: One would prohibit payment of federal workers disciplined for viewing pornography. The second would bar funds from going to colleges or universities that deny or restrict ROTC or other military recruiting on campus. In fact, the Solomon Amendment, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2006, already prevents the Defense Department and several other agencies from making grants to institutions that bar recruiters. Staffers at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities doubt that the new bill, if it becomes law, will have much, if any, practical impact on their member institutions. The Association of American Universities reports that the Senate Commerce Committee is expected to take up its own version of COMPETES later in June, aiming for a floor vote before July 4. To win GOP support, it's likely to "be a streamlined reauthorization."
DEFENSE SPENDING BILL GIVES STEM EDUCATION A BOOSTThe fiscal 2011 defense authorization also got House approval late last month, and it contains a mixed bag for educators. According to an Armed Services panel repor, it would provide $506 million for Defense-wide basic research, some $28 million below the Pentagon budget. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency takes a hit, but there's more money for cyber defense and computer science. The National Defense Education Program comes in above budget, with the committee having added an Energy Power Career Development STEM Initiative and STEM Outreach Education. In applied research, minority-serving institutions get millions more, DARPA gets another trim, and advanced technology gains, as does cyber security. Armed Services members took a dim view of DARPA's Transformative Apps program, intended to put mobile tactical applications in warfighters' hands and "create a new military apps marketplace." The project lacked sufficient justification and overlapped with the Army, the panel judged. Likewise, the panel thinks DARPA is venturing out of its area in trying to bring social networking and advanced information technology to bear on veterans' medical problems. Among other items, the bill authorizes $3.5 billion for the organization created to counter Improvised Explosive Devices. PROPOSED BILL WOULD FUND INNOVATIVE ENERGY RESEARCHEnergy-climate legislation unveiled by Sens. John Kerry (D, Mass.) and Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.) would invest in innovation "across all energy sources," sponsors claim. The bill calls for research and development on renewable energy, advanced vehicles, carbon capture, and clean coal technology, and sets up a national laboratory as a nuclear waste processing "center of excellence."
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III. Innovations |
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LET THE CLEANUP BEGINWhile many other engineers are working around the clock to find a way to plug the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, others are looking for new methods to effectively clean up the mess. Di Gao, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Pittsburgh, may be on to something. He's invented a polymer-coated cotton filtration system that separates oil from water. Its coating is formulated to attract water and repel oil. How would it work in the gulf? Gao envisions "large, trough-shaped filters that could be dragged through the water to capture surface oil." A slick idea. THESE TATTOOS ARE A SWEET IDEA
Regardless of whether you think tattoos are great or gruesome, there is no doubting that they've become very popular. But even skeptics might be won over by a tattoo that can keep people healthy. Researchers at MIT have created temporary tattoos that use a special nanoparticle ink that can constantly monitor the level of glucose in the bloodstream of a diabetic. That's important. Diabetics, who comprise around 2.8 percent of the world's population, need to know when their levels start to change. Most now do a needle-prick to their fingers several times a day to get a reading. But the nano-ink -- made by wrapping nanotubes in a glucose-sensitive polymer -- will do the job with no need to puncture the skin. The ink fluoresces when it's exposed to glucose. A special bracelet would shine a near-infrared light on the tattoo to analyze the fluorescing and give wearers an instant readout. The tattoos would have a lifespan of six months. So wearers could opt for a different skin decoration twice a year.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF BAD DRIVING?Traffic accidents claim the lives of 37,000 people a year in the U.S., and 90 percent of them result from driver error. Drivers can be distracted by a range of things -- texting or talking on a cellphone, eating, sticking a CD into the stereo system. But Swedish carmaker Volvo is now testing an in-car system that uses cameras, radar and lasers to detect an approaching pedestrian and can automatically brake the car if the driver hasn't acted. It also alerts the driver with flashing red lights and beeps that it is taking control of the car. The sensor system would also keep a car a safe distance from the vehicle in front of it. No more tailgating. Ultimately, this technology could be the first step in designing cars that drive themselves in a collision-free traffic system. Let's just hope there are no software glitches. |
IV. The K-12 Report |
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AMERICANS SUPPORT MATH, SCIENCE EDUCATION -- SORT OFYet another survey has found that Americans are conflicted when it comes to mathematics and science instruction. While a big majority say that strong math and science education is key to the country's future, most parents think that the science and math classes that their kids take are "just fine," according to a survey of 1,400 Americans, including 646 parents of K-12 students, conducted by Public Agenda and funded by the GE Foundation. Eighty-four percent of those surveyed agreed that many future jobs will require STEM skills, and 90 percent said that advanced math and science courses are useful to all students, even those who don't pursue STEM careers. However, when it comes to their own children, only 42 percent said they felt their kids should take advanced math and science courses, like calculus and physics. And 70 percent said science teaching could be put off until high school. That's a perception problem that needs to be overcome, explains Jean Johnson, Public Agenda's education insights director. While it's great that Americans are becoming more enthusiastic about STEM education, she says, "many parents don't realize the importance of starting children in science early on."
IN GIFTED PROGRAMS, A DEARTH OF BOYSTo be young, gifted and male means that your talents might be overlooked. In New York City schools, boys comprise 51 percent of the student population, but in the city's schools for gifted kindergartners, girls rule, the New York Times reports. Fifty-six percent of the students in those programs are girls. While it's long been known that boys lag girls in high school graduation rates and college enrollment, educators fear this is an indication that the disparity starts at a very early age, the Times says. No one is sure why the girls dominate, but one theory suggests that the standardized admissions tests used by these programs favor girls who are more verbal and socially mature than boys are at ages 4 and 5. One expert told the Times that these literacy-oriented tests play to girls' strengths, because at that age boys think spatially and mathematically. And even those boys who are enrolled in gifted programs aren't prone to sitting still. As one teacher told the paper: "If they are not moving, they are thinking about moving." The Times notes that it's not just a New York problem. A 2002 National Science Foundation paper found that boys were "overrepresented in programs for learning disabilities, mental retardation and emotional disturbance, and slightly underrepresented in gifted programs." ENGINEERING FOR TOTS (OR, FUN WITH MAGNETS)
Educators say that the best way to get kids interested in engineering is to start teaching the basics at a very young age. That's an axiom that engineering academics at Behrend College, part of the Pennsylvania State University System, have clearly taken to heart, according to the Erie Times News. They recently introduced a Play with Engineering program for 4- and 5-year-olds at the college's Early Learning Center. The program was the brainstorm of Melanie Ford, an engineering lecturer at the college. "Most kids associate engineers with trains," Ford told the newspaper. "One of my goals . . . is to just get kids of all ages to look at things a little differently." The trick with tots this young is how to introduce them to basic engineering concepts while simultaneously holding their interest. So Ford's team came up with four play stations: Bee-Bots required the kids to program a bee to land on picture within a grid; Face had them design a face then use a magnetic want to add hair and features; in Soccer they played the game using toy frogs and turtles manipulated with magnets; and Magnet Magic used several experiments that showed how magnets work. The kids, the paper reports, squealed with delight at each table and were enthralled by the demonstrations. Tyler Szczesny, a mechanical engineering senior who helped out, was likewise impressed, and somewhat jealous. Said he to the paper: "I wish when we were little we had this."
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V. JOBS, JOBS, JOBS |
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Job-hunting? Here are a few current openings:1. Mechanical Engineering -- 2 opportunities 2. Dean -- 1 opportunity 3. Engineering Education -- 1 opportunity 4. Nuclear Engineering -- 1 opportunity Visit here for details:
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VI. COMING ATTRACTIONS |
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Are you attending ASEE's 117th Annual Conference & Exposition in Louisville?
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| Booth | Company | Website |
| 440 | ARM | www.arm.com/support/university/ |
| 209 | Autodesk | www.autodesk.com/edcommunity |
| 326 | Dassault Systemes | www.3ds.com |
| 534 | Digilent | www.digilentinc.com |
| 722-726 | Elsevier | http://textbooks.elsevier.com |
| 723 | EVE | http://university.eve-team.com |
| 640 | Hewlett-Packard Company | www.hp.com/calculators |
| 344 | IEEE Xplore Digital Library | www.ieee.org/ieeexplore |
| 223 | Institute for Shipboard Education (Semester at Sea) | www.semesteratsea.org/engineering |
| 647 | Kaplan Education | www.kaplanae.com |
| 516 | MathWorks | www.mathworks.com/asee_annual |
| 718 | National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) | http://nciia.org/competitions/olympus |
| 210 | National Instruments | http://www.ni.com/academic/ |
| 434 | NCEES - National Council of Examiners for Engineering & Surveying | www.ncees.org/licensure/educator_resources |
| 415 | Quanser Inc. | www.quanser.com |
| 216 | Vernier Software & Technology | www.vernier.com |
VII. COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS |
ASEE's Exclusive New "Engineering Education Suppliers Guide"
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