Press Release - DCPS Students Make Steady Improvement in Science Proficiency

Better late than never: The final 2009 DC CAS Science Results released last year. The progress was small, but heading in the right direction...

Press Release - The Progress Continues -- DCPS Students Make Steady Improvement in Science Proficiency - DC Public Schools, Washington, DC

Report From ReSET Pre-K

        I teach science to two, three and four year olds at the NSF Child  
Development Center in Ballston, VA. 
 Last Tuesday when I was working with my two year old day care  
children I learned something about teacher involvement.  I had  
brought some small bar magnets for them to play with and discover  
what magnets can do.  When one boy found that he could not make a  
North pole attract a North pole, I realized that he did not know his  
letters (he was two after all) so I just turned the magnet around and  
he was satisfied. 
 Then I heard laughter and looked at the end of the table where a  
teacher was playing with three two year old girls and some magnets.   
The teacher had never seen a bar magnet and was finding out what they  
could do in attraction and repulsion.  She and the girls were having  
a grand old time  learning the basics about magnets. 
 Isn't that what ReSET is about showing that science is fun? 
 
 Harold 

Is there a Ben Carson in your ReSET classroom?

ReSET Volunteer Bob Williams writes: 

I'm sure that this is not new for many, but at out meeting I spoke to a 
couple of people who did not know the Ben Carson story, so here is a 
tickler. 
 
Ben Carson rose from poverty and inner city chaos to become a world-famous 
pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.  I found his story to be 
inspirational for teachers, volunteers, parents and children.  Here is an 
excerpt from an interview: 
 
My fifth grade science teacher, Mr. Jake, was really the first teacher to 
express confidence in my academic abilities because I was the only person 
who could identify a rock, which was obsidian, and it was because of the 
reading that I had been doing because after I got through with the animal 
books, I went to plants, and when I finished all the plant books, I went to 
rocks because we lived on the railroad tracks and there were a lot of rocks, 
so I became an expert in geology, and this was while I was still a dummy in 
the class. So, it was like the first time that I had an opportunity to raise 
my hand and demonstrate my knowledge because nobody else knew the answer. 
Everybody was absolutely flabbergasted, but Mr. Jake said to me, "Benjamin, 
that's incredible." He said, "Why don't you come by the laboratory after 
school and we can talk about starting a rock collection for you." And, from 
there I started going to the laboratory every day, getting involved with 
feeding the squirrel, a red squirrel named Maynard. There was a tarantula, 
crayfish, a Jack Dempsey fish and I got involved in all this stuff. There 
was a microscope and I started looking at water specimens and learned all 
about paramecium and volvox and amoebas, and it was just incredible. That 
really was what started me on my way. 
 
His story "Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story" is available in book form 
(adult and children versions) and also a DVD (although the richness of the 
book is not to be missed).