Iowa State University’s offering a course for teachers who want to add “engineering” to the three R’s in their k-12 classrooms. Curriculum specialist Janet Sharp explains it’ll offer activities that help teachers present things like math and science in more interesting ways.For example, have kids stretch objects and calculate the changing cross-section size. Sharp says it’s not aimed at making more work for classroom teachers.Rather than add things they must cover, the engineering ideas are used to get across ideas they’d be teaching anyway. She says teachers see the projects fit into their curriculum, so they must simply make sure they understand the engineering concepts they’ll use to teach math and science. A National Science Foundation grant helped create the course, which is offered in several locations on the Iowa Communications Network.Last year there were more than 170 teachers on a waiting list so this year there will be three “sections” to satisfy all the demand for the course. Sharp created the engineering course with veteran ISU physics professor Loren Zachary.
SEARCH THIS SITE
RECENT NEWS
- Iowa housing market movement looks to be back where it was before COVID
- Grassley: Pentagon workers spent millions of pandemic dollars on personal expenses
- After missing Iowa trucker’s body found, wife says: ‘Things don’t add up.’
- Western Iowa Tech to pay millions to students to settle lawsuit
- $18.8 million workforce housing development planned in Spirit Lake