STEM in Colorado

Some people might know that Karl Fisch and I gave two talks in Texas (one in the Presidential Library at Texas A & M) last school year to people who are involved with the Texas High School Project and STEM. This is an attempt to reorganize education in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Well today, when I got home from football, there was a mailing from the University of Colorado at Denver. Since I earned a Masters degree there, I get their quarterly mailing. Inside of the mailing is information on a STEM workshop/conference in Denver in October! This is great. I am very excited about the change that this refocus in science education could cause. My only area of concern is that if I was not a CU alumn, I would probably not know about this. Is there someone in the district that finds out about this stuff and then is suppossed to give it to the teachers? Is there another way to get this information to the people "in the trenches"? I know that the state government is looking at this as a way to re-energize the study in these fields but I wonder if it is going to move past the "at risk" sections of education and into the areas where all students could benefit? (This is starting to sound like a rant...I guess that happens when you are passionate about something and you feel like it is not getting the attention that it deserves.)

Anyway, this last summer, I decided that I was done complaining about the changes that happen in education and the ones that are talked about and not acted upon. I made a decision that instead of whining and feeling bad about the decisions that were made "for us" teachers, I would start acting when I felt led. That means no more going to workshops and conferences and complaining about the lack of "useful" information. If I was only going to complain then I would try to add to the positive conversation. I would try to make it a little better for teachers. I decided that the best way to not feel like everything was happening to me was to become active in the creation of important material in education.

I starting thinking about ways to get science students to read and write in the content (see post here). Ways of getting the students to "buy in" to what education could be. Not what it is, or was, when I liked it, but what it could be for them.

So, after reading the short STEM article and looking at some web pages on the concept in Colorado, I email the person in charge in Denver. Now, I wait. You see, I asked if there was a way that I can get involved in STEM changes in Colorado. I guess you could say that I am "all in" and I think this is the change that education in these fields needs.