STEM education

Graduate student John Urschel speaks with Education Week reporter Kevin Bushweller about his work aimed at encouraging more students of color to pursue studies in the STEM fields, particularly math. “What really matters is resources, what really matters is how much a child is nurtured and fed things,” says Urschel. “This is just my opinion, but I would say that, by and large, if I had to choose between giving a child a little bit more innate math talent or a little bit more resources, I think, really, resources is what is a very good and bigger predictor [of future success].”

Two high school students and their mentor, MIT postdoc Tansu Daylan, have discovered four new exoplanets located about 200 light years from Earth, reports Nora McGreevy for Smithsonian. The students were participating in the Student Research Mentoring Program, which pairs young astronomers with scientists at MIT and Harvard. “[The students] are so good at finding things that may skip your eyes, basically. It’s fun. And I really like the exchange of ideas,” Daylan adds. 

Mashable spotlights how two high school students, who were part of Student Research Mentoring Program (SRMP) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and MIT, have discovered four new exoplanets. “Both the students took guidance from mentor Tansu Daylan, a postdoc at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, and helped the students study and analyze data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).” 

Vice President for Open Leaning Sanjay Sarma speaks with Jeffrey Young of EdSurge about how the brain works when understanding new concepts. "I question a lot of the structures and dogmas in education that are very closely held, but not necessarily based on science,” says Sarma. “And if we have the courage to reexamine these assumptions and reconstitute education, there's an incredible opportunity to change the game.”

Graduate student David Berardo has demonstrated how science enthusiasts can measure the speed of light at home using a bar of chocolate and the microwave, reports Caroline Delbert for Popular Mechanics. After microwaving the chocolate for about 20 seconds, “what you’ll see is a specific pattern of melting that shows the wavelength of the microwaves that power your oven.”

State officials and MIT kicked off the 2020 virtual STEM week with a focus on the power of mentoring. The effort, reports Travis Anderson for The Boston Globe, is aimed at increasing interest in and awareness of STEM fields and career opportunities for all students. In opening remarks, Governor Charlie Baker noted that “Massachusetts is enormously lucky to have MIT among the constellation of amazing colleges and universities that are part of this Commonwealth.”

CNN reporter Christine Walker spotlights the MIT App Inventor 2020 virtual hackathon, which allowed aspiring coders from all over the world to create apps aimed at improving the global good. “There was a sense of helplessness that was settling down. And a big theme in our workplace is empowerment," says Selim Tezel, a curriculum developer for App Inventor. "We wanted to give them a context in which they could be creative and sort of get rid of that feeling of helplessness."

Graduate student John Urschel speaks with Jamison Hensley of ESPN about his efforts aimed at empowering and encouraging more Black students to pursue careers in STEM fields. “Now more than ever, it’s really important that we highlight some of the diverse areas of mathematics that don’t typically get seen every day,” says Urschel.

Emily Calandrelli SM ’13 speaks with STAT reporter Pratibha Gopalakrishna about her work aimed at getting children interested in science, the importance of representation in the STEM fields, and her new Netflix show. “I don’t shy away from the science because I think kids are very clever and know way more than a lot of people give them credit for,” says Calandrelli.

New Scientist spotlights “Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn,” a new book by Sanjay Sarma, vice president for open learning, and Luke Yoquinto, a research affiliate at the MIT AgeLab. The book explores how “scientific findings in wildly different fields are transforming the way we learn and teach.”

In an article for Bloomberg Businessweek about the best online activities to help kids engaged during the shutdowns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Arianne Cohen spotlights Scratch. Cohen writes that Scratch, “is a simple coding language designed by MIT that lets kids create animations, write stories, and play games while learning how to solve problems.”

WGBH’s Cristina Quinn visits an AI Ethics camp for middle school-aged kids co-hosted by the MIT Media Lab and local STEM organization Empow Studios. “I love to think about a future where the students in this workshop make up the majority of the people who work in Silicon Valley or the majority of the people who work on Wall Street,” says graduate research assistant Blakeley H. Payne, a leader at the camp.

WGBH reporter Cristina Quinn visits MIT to learn about a new ethics of AI workshop offered to middle school-aged children this summer. “I don't want the ethics piece to go to an elite few,” says graduate research assistant Blakeley H. Payne of the importance of offering an education in AI ethics. “And then you're just perpetuating these systems of inequality over and over again.”

A new book by graduate student John Urschel chronicles his decision to retire from the NFL and pursue his passion for mathematics at MIT, reports the Associated Press. Urschel explains that through his book, he “wanted to share my love of math and also perhaps train certain peoples’ thinking about math and show them some of the beauty, elegance and importance of mathematics.”

In this Washington Post article, reporter Chris Berdik spotlights assessment tools developed by MIT’s Playful Journey Lab to help educators track skills development in playful learning activities. “We want to support teachers who are fighting for these types of activities and future-ready skills,” explains research scientist YJ Kim.