Thursday, July 22, 2004

Gonna send you back to nano schoolin'


This announcement for a Microsystems and Nanotechnology Masters postgraduate diploma from Cranfield University in the U.K. reminded me that I should probably review some of the education-related links I've collected. This is by no means complete, and there's a mix here of K-12 to undergrad to postgrad, but I'll throw this out there and let you kids take it from there.

One project that I'm working on, by the way, is further coverage of ambitious plans to completely revamp K-12 education in keeping with the National Nanotechnology Initiative's focus on "converging technologies."

I don't expect it would be easy to get teachers to agree that physics, chemistry, computer science, biology all should be taught at the same time, but the idea of stressing interrelationships could go a long way toward convincing students that these separate disciplines do have applications beyond the next test.

I come from a family of osteopathic physicians, so I've always had this sense of how individual systems do not work for their own sake, but contribute to the total health of the body. The study of nanotechnology can and should work the same way.

OK. Here are the links:

This Just In: Discovery Kids on NBC will feature a show, "Strange Days at Blake Holsey High," in which the kids "wrestle with the powerful forces of science, from cold fusion to nano-technology." Hmmm. Thanks, NBC. I think. More here.

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