I read about a really interesting school called the Open Classroom in Salt Lake City, Utah where parents are required to volunteer 3 hours per child per week. Many schools all over require this parental involvement, but rarely are the parents required to help teach, develop lesson plans and lead small group discussions and learning. […]
Results from summer courses in the bay area Analysis of pre and post tests We conducted five-session courses with different groups of 10-12 year old boys and girls (total = 120). The topics were Biomechanics (conducted with one group of girls) and Heat Transfer and Energy Efficient Houses (conducted with five different groups of boys […]
I taught convection the other day in a 6th grade (urban classroom) . The inquiry activity was to design a house with passive ventilation. If the windows and doors were placed correctly, the hot air (from incense sticks) would gush out, allowing cool, fresh air to enter the house and generate a steady convection current.Surprisingly […]
There have been a few momentous events in Iridescent’s history. June 6th was one of these. Thanks to one dedicated volunteer, Srikant, we got together 20 (very brave) volunteers (10 from SolidWorks) to concurrently conduct hands-on science lessons for an hour for 240, 4th and 5th grade students.This event was part of a bigger corporate […]
How many of us have pursued a career because of a passionate mentor or teacher? I personally chose engineering mainly because my father shared his love for it with me. Children in urban schools rarely come in contact with highly motivated, intense scientists or engineers. So when you go into their classrooms you change the […]
Here is the plan for the Summer and Fall based on advice from ‘Growing Pains’ (an awesome book on management by Eric Flamholtz). Spend a week planning and writing a realistic business plan. Stick it to the wall next to the computer. Identify common, successful factors in the 4 schools this semester and develop a […]
I went to the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) conference in Boston and it was by far the most exciting and inspiring conference I’ve ever been to. I met so many dedicated, science teachers, got invited to teach in schools all over and attended at least 20 hours of talks. I came back very energized […]
We started the second semester of “Engineers as Teachers” and had a team of 14 engineers (some undergraduate students, some volunteering graduate students and some professional engineers). Based on last year’s experiences and the constraint of scheduling volunteers with full-time jobs, we decided to conduct 6 evening Family Science Courses. The topics were all sooo […]