Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson Give a First Grader Terrific Advice About Saving the Earth

Why should parents allow their kids to bang on pots and pans and jump into puddles? Because Science.
That’s according to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson during an appearance at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. When a pigtailed young girl from the audience asked the brilliant scientist, “How can first graders help the earth?” Dr. Tyson responded in a way that’s sure to inspire in her a lifetime of love for science (even if mom or dad might initially disapprove).
Tyson: “When I was in first grade, I was curious about a lot of things. So here’s what I want you to do. When you go home, and you start poking around the kitchen. Have you ever opened the cabinets and pulled out the pots and pans and started banging on them?…Did your parents stop you? Tell them to not stop you.”
“Because you’re just being a kid and you like to explore things. And your parents don’t like it because it gets the pots and pans dirty and because it’s noisy. But for you it’s fun and you’re actually doing experiments: What does the wooden spoon sound like on the aluminum pot or the metal ladle sound like on the steel pot? And they all make different sounds, and it’s fun, right?”
“Okay, another thing — if it’s raining out, and there’s a big puddle — what do you want to do with that puddle?
Girl: Jump in it.
Tyson: You wanna jump in it, and so do your parents let you jump in it?
Girl: Ya — no.
Dr. Tyson goes on to explain that jumping in puddles is a science experiment because you’re creating a splash crater.
So kids, the next time you get in trouble for making a lot of noise or a big mess, just tell your parents that Neil deGrasse Tyson made you do it.
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This Teacher is Helping Young Girls Literally Build Their Way to a Better Future

Emily Pilloton needed to teach fundamental social and life skills to her students, so the teacher and designer did that the only way she knew how — through an innovative, hands-on shop class.
Now, the shop class has followed her from Bertie County, N.C., to Berkeley, Calif., where she founded Camp H, an after-school camp that teaches design and building skills to girls 9 to 12 years old. Why girls? Pilloton told Slate she noticed her male students were more willing to readily tackle problems while female students usually wanted a set of directions or steps before attempting the project. “There aren’t enough spaces for girls to be together as girls doing things that feel audacious,” Pilloton told Slate. “I don’t want girls to just be given a hammer and say ‘You’re holding a hammer, that’s awesome!’ I want to teach them how to weld. And to work on projects that don’t feel artsy and craftsy. Not like straight-up wood shop, but to balance the creative and the artistic side.”
Pilloton is now teaching an after-school class that will teach girls “to fix the things that need repair, installation, and maintenance in our everyday lives,” which will include checking the air pressure in tires, fun experiments and core math and science concepts — subjects that students often become bored with during Pilloton’s target age group. In the future, the program plans to have students build furniture and lighting for women’s shelters.
“I want the projects either to have a personal connection or to teach the girls about being a citizen,” Pilloton told Slate. “I will never ever just give a girl or a student a set of plans and tell her to follow instructions.”
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Is This the Pinterest of Math and Science Education?

In early January, roughly 100 Duke students did something most college students never want to do: They came back from winter break early. But they had a very good reason. Twelve undergraduate teams competed in a 48-hour challenge at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business to come up with innovative ways to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in both the U.S. and India. Their final proposals were full of inventive ideas, including a program where students would repair bicycles and a tutorial program where older students would teach younger students via video. But the first-place team went the extra mile, designing an online platform similar to Pinterest, called “STEM Pals,” which could help students gain STEM problem-solving skills while providing resources to teachers. STEM Pals would feature “lessons in a box,” kits with materials to create water filters, lamps or latrines, which could then be used to help needy neighborhoods near the schools. “We use these kits to spark an interest in project-based learning,” first-place team member Andrew De Donato told The Herald Sun. As its name suggests, the platform would also feature a pen-pal component, connecting schools in the U.S. with schools in India. De Donato and another winning-team member, Jenna Karp, said they would like to see STEM Pals come to life. The $1,500 in prize money awarded by Duke may help them do just that.

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Community Building Through…Baking?

How can you simultaneously teach students about math, science, reading and community service? By baking bread. Through the King Arthur Flour company’s Bread Baking Program, New Hampshire students learn bread baking techniques in school. Then they go home to bake two loaves of bread with their families, and bring one back to give to Rockingham Community Action. The entire student body of Lincoln Akerman School participates in the program: K-3 students create labels for the bread, 4th-7th grade students bake the bread, and 8th grade students bring soup to be served with the bread. Students learn about the process of baking bread, and use math and reading skills to measure ingredients and follow recipes, while giving back to the community in the process.

More Fun Could Fix Science Class

Parents want kids to learn more in science class, and students want school to be interesting and relevant. The solution? Make science more fun! Programs like the Mission Science Workshop in San Francisco give kids a space to explore, experiment, learn to think scientifically, and find subjects they can pursue further at school. It’s part of a new set of teaching guidelines called Next Generation Science Standards that get students to go beyond rote memorization and experiment like scientists, putting them in charge of their own exploration and learning.

Why Does This College Professor Live in a Dumpster?


Jeff Wilson, an environmental science professor at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas, lives in a dumpster as an educational experiment in low-impact living. “The Dumpster Project” started with a used, sanitized unit measuring just 33 square feet. Wilson and his students are going to start by making it comfortable, but not sustainable, with environmentally inefficient lighting, air conditioning, and plumbing. Once they establish its energy consumption baseline, they’ll turn it into a sustainable, efficient living space. Wilson plans to turn the project into a K-12 curriculum and traveling project so the self-proclaimed “Professor Dumpster” can teach a large number of students about his grand experiment in sustainable living.