Instructify

In first grade, my teacher thought I was pretty hot stuff when I made an electromagnet by wrapping a wire around a nail and hooking it up to a D battery. Sadly, my third-grade teacher wasn’t as impressed when I tried the same project again. Just because I reached my scientific peak at seven years old, that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in what kids with serious scientific aptitude can do. That’s why I’m excited about the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair, March 28, 2009 at Meredith College in Raleigh.

Of course, to qualify for the state science fair, your kids will first have to drop some science at a regional fair. Click here to find out which region your students will compete in. Take note: each region has its own due dates/application deadlines, so be sure to double-check so your students can procrastinate plan effectively.

Now is a great time for your students to brainstorm projects. You might also peruse the list of winners to see the sorts of projects that impress the judges. Entries like, “Application of a Humpback Whale Fin Morphology to a Standard Airfoil: Revolutionizing Slow Flight Aerodynamics” are pretty impressive. D-battery electromagnet? Not so much. -BILL FERRIS

North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair

North Carolina regional fairs

Related Stuff:

Post student science experiments online at TestToob

Easy-to-do experiments for the science fair

Celebrate weird science with the Ig Nobel Awards

Photo credit: xmatt on flickr

The most recent mission to Mars included a lovable little robot fella named Phoenix, who dug up Martian soil samples, who won our hearts with his twitters, and who trundled adorably around on top of towering piles of garbage, and, um, wait, I guess I’m thinking of Wall-E. But wait! So is NASA! They’ve partnered with Disney on a contest for K-12 kids to Name NASA’s Next Mars Rover.

Contestants must be American school kids, and they must submit their entry essay by January 25, 2009. Kids who don’t enter (or who aren’t American) can still vote on the submitted names by worldwide public poll in March 2009, and winners will be announced in April. There’ll be nine winners, who will receive Wall-E prizes and/or the opportunity to sign the actual Mars Rover before it actually goes to actual Mars. Now that’s cute. –AMANDA FRENCH

Name the Rover

Related Stuff

Houston, we’re INSPIREd

Set the controls for the closest planet to the sun: NASA mission to Mercury

Blast off with the NASA Kids’ Club

Observe NASA’s Earth Observatory

Do you know someone who’s helped improve literacy for children and adults? Are you that person, and are looking for some way you could finally get some recognition from your colleagues and loved ones? If so, you need to know about the Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year award.

The Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year award honors “educators who demonstrate an impact on families through early childhood education, school-based programs, adult literacy and ESL programs, parenting education, library literacy programs and community literacy programs.” The winning teacher will receive $7500 for his or her program, plus a trip to the National Conference on Family Literacy in Orlando March 1 - 3, 2009. Finalists, of which there will be several, get $500 each. Not bad.

Nominations are due by December 5. If this applies to someone you know, nominate him or her today. Educators who work to boost literacy for an entire family certainly deserve some recognition. -BILL FERRIS

Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year

Related Stuff:

Free money: Toyota Tapestry Grant for Science Teachers

Check out these contests for young filmmakers

HASTAC is looking for the sharpest needles on the digital farm, and when they find them, they’ll award them anywhere from $5,000 to $250,000. You’re an Instructify reader; surely you could be one of those talented needles — especially if you’ve got a great Web 2.0 project or idea.

The aforesaid HASTAC (pronounced just like the proverbial bale of dried grass) is actually the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, an initiative funded by the deep-pocketed MacArthur Foundation. The 2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition is giving out two separate kinds of awards: one to teams of people on “larger-scale projects” and the other to individual “innovators aged 18-25.” In both cases, the DML Competition wants to encourage “Participatory Learning,” which from their description doesn’t sound much different from social networking: “Participatory Learning includes the many ways that learners (of any age) use new technologies to participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment upon one another’s projects, and plan, design, advance, implement, or simply discuss their goals and ideas together.”

Examples of winning projects from 2007 include “FollowTheMoney.org”, which helps civics students (and all of us) understand certain legislative activities; the “Black Cloud” Environmental Studies game played by high school students from Los Angeles and Cairo; and “Always With You”, a mobile-phone network that enables micro-funding to young African social activists.

The deadline for this year’s competition is October 15, 2008, so start honing your application-filling-out skills now. –AMANDA FRENCH

2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition

Related Stuff:

Grants for energy education projects

Free money: Toyota Tapestry Grant for Science Teachers

Win gas money for your next educational excursion with Target Field Trip Grants

Have rising gas costs put a stop to field trips at your school? More and more schools are cutting back on field trips to save money. Pity, since you can find so many whiz-bang learning opportunities outside the classroom. If your great field trip ideas are at risk, consider applying for a Target field trip grant. The retail giant will gole out 5,000 grants of up to $800 each this school year.

You can apply online anytime before November 1. You only get one submission, though, so make it count.  “Visit the zoo. Go backstage at a local theater. Tour a museum,” suggests the website. Of course, if you really want to win one of these, you could propose a trip to your local Target retailer. Or a nearby national park, that would probably work, too. -BILL FERRIS

Target Field Trip Grants

Related Stuff:

Free money: Toyota Tapestry Grant for Science Teachers

Hit the road this summer with these fuel-saving tips

Sound Field Trip Advice from Kidcast

Toyota and the National Science Teachers Association want to give you a bunch of money. All they ask in return is you use it for an awesome project.

If you’re a middle school or high school science teacher, you should apply for a Toyota TAPESTRY Grant, which I assume is an acronym for something. Toyota and the NSTA will award more than half a million bucks to teachers who propose “innovative projects that enhance science education in the school and/or school district.”

The grants will take the form of 50 large grants (as in $10,000), and 20-32 mini grants ($2500). That’s a lot of dollars. More importantly, that’s a lot of projects, which means you’ve got pretty decent odds of winning some money for your classroom. For full details, click here. You’ve got until January 21, 2009 to come up with something, which is plenty of time to make your idea a good one. -BILL FERRIS

Toyota TAPESTRY Grant

If your students can put together a Web quest by this Friday, they’ll have a chance to win an eight gigabyte iPod Touch (yeah!).

Youth Media Exchange (ymex) is sponsoring a contest to try and create interest in their user-generated quests. Each quest is an inquiry-based research assignment that challenges students to answer (and ask) pertinent questions about issues such as the environment, poverty or education.

To quote the ymex website, quests will be evaluated on the following criteria:

1) Is it fun - will others be likely to want to do it?
2) Does it keep the focus on the issue it addresses?
3) Is it challenging enough but not too much that nobody will want to complete it?
4) Will digital literacy skills and/or enhanced critical thinking about media be gained?
5) Is it participatory, does it encourage interaction and collaboration with other ymex members?

For more information, check out the contest forum — FYI, pay no attention to the August 4 deadline. The front page of their site states they’ve extended the deadline until August 8. And if they’ve extended the deadline, it’s probably because they haven’t gotten many good entries, which means your students have a good chance of winning. So get a move on! -BILL FERRIS

Create-a-Quest Contest

Are you ready for your close-up shot? Are your students? If so, there are a couple of video contests out there to show off your filmmaking skills. First up is AFI ScreenNation: Claim to Fame Challenge which is open to students 13 and older to write about their hometown’s claim to fame. Requirements are that the film is five minutes or less, and that you interview at least three people. The prize? A Sony DCR-SR45 ~ HDD Handycam Camcorder w/ 30 GB Hard Disk Drive, Tripod.

Next up, a slightly different contest. From WatchKnow.org, make a video from a list of topics from K-12 education. The idea of this project is to build a library of instructional materials - sort of like this blog. Material submitted will be available under a creative commons license. Right now the project is in beta, and they are looking for input, but it should start in full force in the fall. -ALICE MERCER

WatchKnow.org
AFI ScreenNation: Claim to Fame Challenge

Related Stuff:

Produce an Educational Video in Your Classroom
How to Easily Create a Claymation Movie Class Project
Give Your Shaky, Low-Res Videos a Makeover
Get Ready for your Closeup: Kids’ Vid

Photo credit: kino-eye on flickr.

When my parents went to school, they ran drills covering what to do in the event of an atomic explosion. We’ve come a long way since then, but nuclear weapons remain a danger. The Global Disarmament Hub wants students to do something about it. That’s why they created Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World. If your pupils are concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons, they have a chance to win a trip to the organization’s annual seminar in Geneva.

To enter, students must respond to the question, ”What do you think can lead governments to stay away from, or do away with, nuclear weapons?” They have three options to do so: write a 1500-word essay, produce a 2-5 minute video, or design a poster.

Entries must be received by May 31, so they’d better get started pretty soon (sorry, we just found out about this ourselves). The Students for a NWFW website has lots of links and resources to get your kids started. An essay or poster might be easiest this late in the process. If your students do decide to shoot a video, make sure that “Duck and Cover” isn’t part of their solution. -BILL FERRIS

Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

Photo credit: AlbinoFlea on flickr

We have a winner! The Instructify staff has voted Mister Teacher’s “Punch it Up” rounding technique as the best mnemonic device we received. It’s a great way to teach young students the concept of rounding, and is also really catchy. But we’ll let Mister Teacher himself explain:

When I teach my third graders how to estimate, I use a process that one of my buddies taught me long ago called, “Punch It Up.”

Let’s say that you want to round the number 86 to the nearest 10. The preliminary step is to identify place values, but the meat of estimation comes in knowing whether to round a number up or down. So the kids know that they are analyzing the number 6 in 86. They hold up 6 fingers. With 6 fingers, they are able to make a fist, and with that fist they can, “Punch It Up” to 90. If the number had been 84, and they had been holding 4 fingers up, they would see that they are NOT able to make a fist to punch it up, so they have to just let go of it and let it drop down to 80.

To punch it up, you have to have at least 5 fingers in order to make a fist. The kids really take hold of this concept and get excited about rounding.

For his efforts, Mister Teacher wins a Philips GoGear MP3 player, which he can then load with other catchy educational phrases. Or, you know, music.

If you’re an elementary teacher, consider using the “Punch it Up” method in your own math lessons. Just be sure to thank Mister Teacher for sharing this great trick. -BILL FERRIS

Mister Teacher

Related Stuff:
Contest: Win an MP3 Player by Sharing Your Best Mnemonic Device

Photo credit: Jaume d’Urgell on flickr

Today is the last day to submit your best educational mnemonic device to our contest. The best entry wins a Philips GoGear MP3 Player.

Post your entries in the comments section by midnight. We’ll announce the winner next week!

Need some inspiration? Check out this old favorite on the elements of the periodic table. -BILL FERRIS

Contest: Win an MP3 Player by Sharing Your Best Mnemonic Device

It’s not too late to enter our Mnemonic Device Contest. Submit your best educational mnemonic device in any subject by Friday, February 29 for a chance to win a Philips GoGear MP3 player.

If you need inspiration, here’s a song that’ll help you remember the US Presidents.

We’ll announce the winner next week. Just click here and post your entry in the comments. -BILL FERRIS

Contest: Win an MP3 Player by Sharing Your Best Mnemonic Device

You can still win a Philips GoGear MP3 player in our contest for the best educational mnemonic device. In honor of Leap Day, we’re extending the deadline until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, February 29. If you need some inspiration to work yourself up into a mnemonic mnemania, here’s a fun song about the countries of the world.

For the full rundown and to submit an entry, click here. -BILL FERRIS

Contest: Win an MP3 Player by Sharing Your Best Mnemonic Device

Mr. Davidson in my Algebra II class had a method to help us struggling students to simplify equations. He called it his “number rap.” It went a little something like this:

“Put your letters on the left and your numbers on the right.
You do it this way, you get ‘em all right.
Combine the like terms, multiply, divide,
You do it this way, easy slide by.”

I’ve never heard the term “easy slide by” before or since, and I haven’t taken a math class in more than a decade, but I still remember the right way to solve equations.

You’ve probably got your own little tricks to help students remember important information, whether they’re acronyms, imagery, or arrhythmic algebraic hip hop. Instructify wants to hear your best educational mnemonic devices. And we’re giving away a free Philips GoGear MP3 player to the best one.

Just post your memory-enhancing tricks in the comments section by February 20. They don’t have to be your creation, but uncommon or unique entries will definitely get preference. ROY G BIV and Every Good Boy Does Fine are classics, but we want to hear some new ideas.

We’ll post the top answers later this month. Now’s your chance to show off your creativity, plus help your fellow teachers add a few tricks to their repertoire. -BILL FERRIS

Update: The contest deadline is Friday, February 29. Mnemonic devices can be for any subject.