Posts Tagged: "education"

Fish & Richardson has awarded full scholarships to 33 students and their teacher chaperones this year, marking 14 years of supporting kids and providing them with an opportunity to attend the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. The goal of Fish’s Space Camp Scholarship program is to get middle school students excited about the fields of math, science, and technology.

At one point during his remarks last night President Obama said: “Nobody rushes on the field and dumps Gatorade on them (laughter) when you win a science award. Maybe they should!” Indeed we should celebrate science and math victories every much, if not more, than we celebrate sports victories, but that is not our culture unfortunately. We need to change our culture to raise the profile of those who are succeeding on every level in the scientific fields. President Obama can play a major role in bringing about that change, and his raising the profile of those who are science fair winners is certainly encouraging.

Biotechnology industry leaders announced today a major new program to improve the quality of U.S. life science education. The Biotechnology Institute’s new “Scientists in the Classroom” initiative is the life science industry’s response to President Obama’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign to improve the performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The announcement came as life science industry executives participated in a White House event announcing the creation of the new broad education coalition called “Change the Equation” comprised of CEOs from across a broad spectrum of industries.

For now we can be thankful that the U.S. enjoys dominance in an important and growing field like nanotechnology. Even though China does not receive high marks yet, it seems only a matter of time before the Chinese figure out what we in the United States, most in Western Europe and many in Asia have know for a very long time. Significant investment in technology and the creation of a business friendly climate lead to businesses locating, investors investing and high-paying technology jobs being created. Of course, there is also the national security angle to consider as well. So not only are we allowing other nations to catch up to us from a technology and business standpoint, we are allowing other countries to catch up to us from a military technology standpoint, which is concerning.

When it comes to talking with their kids, parents say the topics of math and science are harder to discuss than drug abuse, according to a survey of 561 adults who have children ages 5 to 18. The survey was conducted online between Sept. 23 and 28, 2009 by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates on behalf of Intel Corporation, and…