I am reposting this article from the COS Website.

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) invites applications to develop interventions that target specific problems faced by chronically low-performing schools and test the promise of strategies for successfully addressing those problems within a relatively short time period. Over the five-year project period, grantees will be expected to develop and test a number of practices that principals of low-performing schools, with support from their district, could implement to improve their schools. Eligible applicants include, but are not limited to, nonprofit and for-profit organizations and public and private agencies and institutions, such as colleges and universities. Competitive applicants will have research teams that collectively demonstrate expertise in school improvement practices, intervention development, implementation of, and analysis of results from, the research design that will be employed, and working with teachers, schools, or other education delivery settings. Typical awards for projects are $250,000 to $650,000 per year for a maximum of five years. The letter of intent due date is August 3, 2009; the application due date is October 1, 2009.

I am extremely interested to see what sort of science comes from these studies.  Improving low performing schools is one of the best investments our government can make.

Today Jugular Blog posted a great article of how Portugal is working to innovate the classroom.  The article talks about getting all the people in Portugal up to speed with computer and internet use.  Portugal's government is subsiding laptops and internet access to all of their citizens at great expense.  Along with this financial investment the classrooms are becoming more interactive with the use of these laptops.  The teacher is not a talking head but rather a guide showing them how to use the laptop to find information. Personally the greatest thing I ever learned was how to find my own information.  In the USA the parents show their kids how to be resourceful.

A study shows that even though the labs in high schools are poor, there are several things educators can do to improve science education.  They point to four principals for science education:

 Design science lab experiences with clear learning outcomes in mind.

Thoughtfully sequence lab experiences into science instruction.

Integrate learning science content and learning about the processes of science.

Incorporate ongoing student reflection and discussion.

The Fund For Thought seeks to help teachers achieve these principals by providing materials to teachers so that they can better engage children in the science classroom.  Soon, we hope to develop kits to give to teachers that are filled with fun and simple experiments for the classroom, as well as providing online resources that teachers can use to further promote critical thinking and participation in science.