[Whiteboard-subscribers] Whiteboard Report #131, 2/20/08

[Brad Edmondson]

NSDL WHITEBOARD REPORT #131

February 20, 2008

Whiteboard Report news is on the Web at http://NSDL.org and  http:// 
expertvoices.nsdl.org/whiteboardtalkback. Back issues are available  
at http://content.nsdl.org/wbr/Issue--Archive.php.

NEWS

Indiana High School Goal: 1500 MPG

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/highlights
http://www.doe.state.in.us/octe/technologyed/SuperMileageChallenge.html
Student engineers in Midwestern high schools are preparing for  
mileage competitions where passenger vehicles regularly exceed 1,000  
miles per gallon.  Indiana’s annual Super Mileage Challenge is  
scheduled for April 28 at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. Last  
year, five of the 22 competing high school teams exceeded 1,000 MPG,  
and 16 of them exceeded 200 MPG. The Society of Automotive Engineers  
and The Shell Corporation hold competitions for collegiate and  
professional teams. The IMSTEA seeks inquiries from teachers in other  
states who would like to participate or set up their own Supermileage  
programs. Go to NSDL Highlights for more information and links, or  
contact James M. Thompson, jthompson16 AT indy.rr.com.

A Grammy in Mathematics

http://www.plangentprocesses.com
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080209/mathtrek.asp
University of New Hampshire mathematician Kevin Short won a Grammy  
last week for developing an algorithm that helped a team of audio  
technicians restore the only recording of Woody Guthrie performing  
before a live audience.  The wire recording was severely damaged and  
took more than a year to transfer into a digital format.  Sound  
engineer Jamie Horwath used a constant hum on the tape to set  
algorithms that corrected variations in the original recording’s  
speed. He called on Short, whose research focuses on the applications  
of nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, to fill in missing sounds  
caused by breaks in the wire.  The Grammy for Best Historical Album  
was awarded to “The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949” on  
February 10.

New in Microbe Library

http://www.microbelibrary.org
New resources have been added to The American Society for  
Microbiology’s (ASM) MicrobeLibrary. They include a new issue of  
Focus on Microbiology Education that emphasizes bioinformatics and  
microbial genomics, and a new article in the Journal of Microbiology  
and Biology Education on a student project to examine complex traits  
in Drosophila. Three new curriculum activities and three new visual  
resources are also available for downloading. The Microbe Library is  
looking for authors to submit appropriate resources, such as  
classroom activities and images of the microbial world. Submissions  
are due March 1, 2008. For more information, go to the website or  
contact MicrobeLibrary AT asmusa.org.

ConfChem 08 To Focus on NSDL

http://www.ched-ccce.org/confchem/2008/b/index.htm
ConfChem is a free and open conference on topics in chemistry  
education that is presented entirely online. Its Spring 2008 session  
will focus on Chemistry at the National Science Digital Library and  
will open with a paper by Lee L. Zia, NSDL’s program officer at the  
National Science Foundation. Presentations are also scheduled from  
three NSDL Pathways (ChemEd DL, CSERD, and Compadre). The conference  
opens on April 15th. Submissions and comments will be accepted until  
May 15th and will then be archived online. The conference is  
sponsored by the Committee on Computers in Chemical Education of the  
Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society.

Reports from AAAS

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/roadreports
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog
http://www.aaas.org/go/news
The largest science conference in the world ended on Monday, leaving  
behind vast amounts of fresh, free information for classroom use.   
The best blogs covering the American Association for the Advancement  
of Science meeting are NSDL’s Road Reports, where our correspondent  
focuses on deep-sea coral, the global movement to deliver $200  
laptops to third-world children, and a call for freedom for federally- 
funded scientists in the US; Discover Magazine’s Discoblog, with  
items on the future of sharks and tuna, a non-debate between Clinton  
and Obama on scientific topics, and new research on how imagination  
works; and the AAAS press division, offering a comprehensive array of  
releases, videos, and podcasts.  Dive in!

BOOKMARKS

A Conference On Convergence

http://www.same-tec.org
The Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC) holds an  
annual meeting that provides national networking and collaboration  
between education and industry partners. The goal of the SAME-TEC  
Conference is to promote the viability of high tech industries  
through the development of a highly skilled and knowledgeable  
workforce. This year’s conference, July 28-31 in Austin, Texas, will  
focus on how different technologies are converging.  Areas of  
specialty include semiconductors and electronics, information and  
communications technologies, alternative energies, optics and  
photonics, mechatronics, nanotechnology, innovations in teaching and  
learning, and program building strategies.

Literacy Grants for School Libraries

http://www.ed.gov/programs/lsl/index.html
The US Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary  
Education will make about 100 grants of $30,000 to $300,000 to school  
districts to improve library materials. Allowed uses for the grants  
include buying new equipment for school media centers, holding  
professional development activities, and developing web sites.  Only  
districts in which at least 20 percent of students are from families  
with incomes below the poverty line may apply. The application  
deadline is April 2.

Communication Tips for Scientists

http://communicatingscience.aaas.org
Scientists and engineers who can communicate their ideas in simple,  
clear language are essential to the goal of public engagement with  
science and technology. The AAAS Center for Public Engagement with  
Science and Technology and the NSF have launched a website that  
provides resources to improve the abilities of scientists and  
engineers to communicate effectively with the public. The site  
includes online seminars, how-to tips for media interviews, and  
strategies for identifying public outreach opportunities. The AAAS  
Center will also hold in-person workshops in several cities.

INSPIRATION

Voyagers Are Far Out

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/pathwaysnews
Nine years ago last Sunday, the Voyager 1 spacecraft passed Voyager 2  
to become the most distant human-made object from the Sun. Voyager 1  
was launched on September 5, 1977, passed Saturn in November 1980,  
and went through the zone of termination shock, where solar wind  
abruptly slows down, in December 2004. Voyager 2 passed termination  
shock in August 2007. Both craft are still transmitting data back to  
NASA scientists, who await their passages into interstellar space.   
Read more at the Today in History blog from Engineering Pathway,  
which reports regularly on milestones in science and engineering.

NSDL Whiteboard Report describes research, news, and notes from the  
National Science, Technology, Mathematics, and Education Digital  
Library (http://NSDL.org), which is funded by the National Science  
Foundation. Whiteboard is published bi-weekly and includes  
information from NSDL projects and programs nationwide. Please  
redistribute. To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://nsdl.org/ 
publications/?pager=signup.

Whiteboard Report is edited by Brad Edmondson (gbe2 at cornell.edu).  
Project leaders and participants from the NSDL community are  
encouraged to send research news and notes of interest. Please limit  
these items to 200 words and provide web links to additional  
information.

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is the nation's online  
library of resources for science, technology, engineering, and  
mathematics education and research. NSDL would like to thank the  
National Science Foundation for its generous support and advocacy of  
NSDL as the NSF digital library of science education. This material  
is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under  
Grants No. 0227648, 0424671, and 0227888. Any opinions, findings, and  
conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those  
of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the  
National Science Foundation.



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