NAPE Website

National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity Education Foundation
P.O. Box 369, Cochranville, PA 19330
Phone: 610-593-8038 Fax: 610-593-7283
Email: NAPE@napequity.org

Funded by the National Science
Foundation HRD-0734056

October 2008
STEM Equity Pipeline News

Two States Added to STEM Equity Pipeline Project

The NAPE Education Foundation announces the addition of Iowa and Minnesota to the states participating in the STEM Equity Pipeline Project. Iowa, led by the Iowa Department of Education and Minnesota, led by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and the Minnesota Department of Education, will be joining California, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin who participated in the first year of the STEM Equity Pipeline project.

ARTICLES

No Gender Differences in Math Performance

(ScienceDaily, July 27, 2008)
We've all heard it. Many of us in fact believe it. Girls just aren't as good at math as boys. But is it true? After sifting through mountains of data - including SAT results and math scores from 7 million students who were tested in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act - a team of scientists says the answer is no. Whether they looked at average performance, the scores of the most gifted children or students' ability to solve complex math problems, girls measured up to boys.
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Video Game Helps Math Students Vanquish an Archfiend: Algebra

(Winnie Hu, New York Times)
More than 100 New York City schools are using a video game called "Dimension M" to help teach pre-algebra and algebra to middle-school students. "You have to be at the top of your game," said Salma Nakhlawi, 13, who works to improve her math skills so she can play "Dimension M" with friends. "I used to hate math, but I've started to like it. I actually understand it more."
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Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds

(Sara Rimer, New York Times)
The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.
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Energy Department Has High School Engineering Contest

(UPI.com, October 20, 2008)
The U.S. Department of Energy has started a new competition designed to allow high school students to work on real world engineering challenges. The Real World Design Challenge is intended to engage high school students with real engineering problems faced by industry.
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Yucaipa Math Teacher Emphasizes Process, Creative Thinking

(Michael Perrault, The Press-Enterprise)
At Canyon Middle School in Yucaipa, teacher Zach More is serious about ensuring that solving algebra problems never gets stale in his class. Even after 11 years of teaching algebra, he pushes himself to find new ways to make sure his students are grasping often-abstract concepts such as polynomials, factorization and formulas. His enthusiasm, coupled with skill, hard work and a track record of success, earned More a Teacher of the Year title this year in San Bernardino County.
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Math Study Evaluates Digital Aides

Researchers in Kentucky are learning important lessons about whether students with disabilities are benefiting from a digital math textbook that speaks words and equations aloud while highlighting those elements on a computer screen. The research is one of several federally funded projects to identify ways to deliver curriculum content that are more effective than printed books or the common forms of digital textbooks.
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AAUW to Launch Major STEM Study with Funding from National Science Foundation

AAUW has won a two-year, $249,000 grant from the National NSF to launch a major study of the causes and dynamics behind the low participation of women and girls in the STEM fields.
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Students Who Use "Clickers" Score Better on Physics Tests

Hand-held electronic devices called clickers are helping college students learn physics, according to a series of research studies. Ohio State University students who used the devices to answer multiple-choice questions during physics lectures earned final examination scores that were around 10 percent higher--the equivalent of a full-letter grade--than students who didn't.
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PUBLICATIONS

Why Women Choose IT

The Girls Scouts and the National Center for Women and Information Technology have released a study with their findings in the third phase of "Evaluating Promising Practices in Information Technology (IT) for Girls." This third and final phase surveyed women currently working in IT to determine what influences in early life caused them to pursue a career in computing.
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Cross-Cultural Analysis of Students with Exceptional Talent in Mathematical Problem Solving

(Titu Andreescu, Joseph A. Gallian, Jonathan M. Kane, and Janet E. Mertz)
This article explains that many girls exist who possess such extremely high aptitude for mathematics. The frequency with which they are identified is due, at least in part, to a variety of socio-cultural, educational, or other environmental factors that differ significantly among countries and ethnic groups and can change over time.
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RESOURCES

SMILE Website

Visit SMILE for science and math activities that you and the kids in your life will love.

Girls Are I.T. Website

AIAA Grants for Science and Math Programs

Knowles Science Teaching Foundation Fellowships

These fellowships are awarded to qualified young men and women committed to teaching high school science and/or mathematics in American schools.

GET Ready for Math and Science Conditional Scholarship

Low-income and middle-income high school students with top math and science test scores may be eligible to apply for up to four years of free college tuition.