June 15th, 2013

New Program for our Conference on Transnational Collaborative STEAM Education

We’ve just published the latest program of speakers, panels and events at our upcoming October 3 & 4 conference on Transnational Collaborative STEAM Education. Our conference dovetails with the WORLDSTE2013 conference with a specific focus on how to approach science, technology and arts education from a transnational collaborative perspective.

We’ll be releasing more news in coming weeks. Until then, you can download the program here.

And don’t forget to register. We look forward to seeing you in October.

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June 11th, 2013

MicroGlobalScope Welcomes Cambodia’s CIA FIRST International School to the Community

Joyce Ira Yarza of Cambodia’s CIA FIRST International School with Mai Le of Everest Education as Joyce picks up her MicroGlobalScope kit.

A few weeks ago, Science House Foundation supporter Suzanne Cruse invited Executive Director Joshua Fouts to meet social entrepreneur Tony Ngo, co-founder of Everest Education an education NGO in Vietnam which is focuses on improving the education opportunities of K-12 students in Vietnam. Tony is a passionate leader who has launched several other non-profits.

We agreed to partner with Tony to bring Everest Education into MicroGlobalScope family of schools. It turned out that Tony was leaving for Vietnam in a few days. He offered to deliver the MicroGlobalScope equipment to Vietnam personally. (More on that in a later post.)

Joshua asked him if he had any extra space in his suitcase for one more MicroGlobalScope kit. It turns out he did.

Last December Science House Foundation awarded a MicroGlobalScope kit to Cambodia’s CIA FIRST International School in Phnom Penh. However, due to import restrictions, we were unable to deliver the equipment. Tony offered to deliver the microscopes to Ho Chi Minh City if we could arrange to have them picked up.

Joyce Ira Yarza a science teacher at the CIA FIRST International School, who had been patiently awaiting her MicrGlobalScope kit for the past six months agreed to make the drive to Vietnam.

Joyce sent us the below dispatch from her journey, including a special message from her students. (Thanks to Science House Foundation supporter Alex Le Fontaine for introducing us to Joyce.)

Arrival at the Everest Education building in Ho Chi Minh City.

My trip to Ho Chi Minh City took roughly 7 hours by bus and though it may sound tiring and boring, I’d say it was all worth it because Mai and Don of Everest Education were so hospitable and accommodating. I also met Hieu Le who is one of their teachers in the school. All three of them amazed me with their passion and dedication to give their students quality education which is the same vision we have at CIA FIRST. It’s truly an honor to meet and be acquainted with new people whom we can collaborate with in terms of making education, especially making science better for our students. All of us were able to discuss our plans for the project and promised to keep in touch for updates and future activities.

When I arrived back here in Cambodia, I took a chance to play with the equipment and they’re all awesome. I personally loved the MiScope because it’s handy and very easy to use. When I showed it to my students, all of them wanted to extend our science class and discover more things under it. However, since our exams are due next week, we have postponed our activity till the last week of the month, just before we go on our vacation. I also took the opportunity to teach a couple more of science teachers at school to familiarize themselves with the new microscopes. With these equipment, I am sure that science will be so much exciting for the next school year. FYI, we’re going to have a dedicated club for this project,, so we’ll keep you in touch with our activities through our blog posts.

Mai Le and Don Le of Everest Education in Vietnam with their microscopes.

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May 13th, 2013

Call for Papers: The Journal of Transnational STEAM Education

Science House Foundation is pleased to announce a call for papers for the first edition of a new, annual peer-reviewed journal, The Journal of Transnational STEAM Education.

The journal is an accompaniment to the new annual conference on Transnational Collaboration in STEAM Education that will be held this October 3 & 4, 2013.

The editorial focus of this journal will attempt to illuminate the challenges and opportunities in developing science and arts curricula across cultures with an emphasis on the pedagogical impact and theory of this work as well as the potential impact this may have on trade, diplomacy, science and more.

We invite any interested parties to submit abstracts. A selection of these abstracts will be included as speakers at the conference.

We look forward to seeing you in October!

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April 21st, 2013

Announcing: A New Conference on Transnational Collaborative STEAM Education

Science House Foundation is pleased to announce our first annual conference on Transnational Collaborative STEAM Education, October 3 & 4, 2013. We invite you all to attend an participate. Please follow this link for our Call for Papers. Space is limited!

In an increasingly interdependent economy, one of the key skills that all science educators, students and scientists will need to succeed is awareness of how to collaborate in a global marketplace. Two of the largest science projects of the last two decades, the human genome project and the large hadron collider, were the results of scientists from hundreds of countries collaborating across cultures. How can we expand these monumental efforts to transnational K-12 science education?

The path to transnational collaboration around science education is highly complex and yet the returns can be great for countries, cultures and economies by translating into new opportunities for jobs, strengthening the education base of students (including retention rates) and providing new venues for self-esteem for K-12 kids.

Speakers at this conference will include lead thinkers from government, NGOs, officials, educators, theorists, scholars, scientists, foundation executives and more.

Some issues that this mini-conference will address include: Understanding the challenges in transnational collaborative curriculum and learning; Science and cultural sensitivity: How to preserve and respect identity; and understanding cross-cultural collaboration means in a science education context.

Who should attend:
Policymakers: If you are a policymaker interested in workforce development, international collaboration, trade, science education, this gathering is for you.

Scholars and Scientists: Transnational collaborative approaches to science and arts education and curriculum provide a new scholarly and teaching challenge. If you would like to offer your research and ideas on how to address these challenges, this conference is for you.

NGOs, Non-profits and Foundations: If your organization is working to create more connections across borders and cultures through education, this conference is for you. We invite you to share your ideas.

We look forward to seeing you in October. We will be updating the site with new announcements about the conference in coming days.

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March 21st, 2013

Changing Lives through Science Education

Science House Foundation is dedicated to transforming the lives of kids worldwide — especially urban and disadvantaged youth — about the excitement of STEM education in an effort to help them develop leadership skills, self-reliance, stay in school, and create viable 21st. C. jobs skills. We operate in over 26 countries connecting kids in the US and Canada to nations like Burma, Brasil, Thailand, India, and China.

We are pleased to share with you a new document about our work. Feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues.

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March 14th, 2013

Transforming Intercultural Collaboration and Science in Learning Innovation; A Case Study in Brasil [em Português]

We have just released a new report in Portuguese about Science House Foundation’s work in Brasil. We are pleased to share it with our Portuguese-speaking readers! Click here to read the report: Pontos de Ciência no Brasil 2012: Transformando colaboração intercultural e ciência em inovação no aprendizado

 

 

 

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February 14th, 2013

MicroGlobalScope and the Davidson Institute: Collaborating on International Science Education

One of Science House Foundation’s newest collaborators in 2012 was the Davidson Institute at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. The Davidson Institute has a series of science education programs for children in the region. We wanted to bring a cross-section of the children they work with into our MicroGlobalScope network, which is presently connecting kids, teachers and scientists in 25 countries. Science House Foundation provided two MicroGlobalScope kits to the Davidson Institute to provide to two different schools in Israel, one each Arabic and Hebrew-speaking. Our partnership with the Davidson Institute, as with many of our partners on the ground in countries augments our mission of sparking the imaginations of kids worldwide about the excitement of science by creating an additional layer of consistency and stability.

Dr. Ariel Heimann of the Davidson Institute gave a speech at Science House earlier this week and shared with us a report by Drs. Yossi Elran and Carmel Bar about how the past year went for them. We are pleased to share this with you. It provides an honest and accurate take on the first, year, including one of the challenges we face periodically, which is that technology sent halfway around the world can fail. In this case, the Celestron Microscope we purchased failed. Since it is an international shipment we have to purchase a new one. The challenges of running an international NGO is not without challenges.

We welcome your input. You an also support the work of Science House Foundation by helping us purchase microscopy kits. We invite you to donate today to help us change the lives of kids worldwide through science.

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January 28th, 2013

India’s Bhaiya Ram Munda Foundation Visits Science House

(R to L) Meenakshi Munda of Bhaiya Ram Munda Foundation, James Jorasch, Founder and Chairman, Science House Foundation, Pamela Kraft of Tribal Link.

Thanks to collaborator Pamela Kraft of Tribal Link for stopping by Science House Foundation today with Meenakshi Munda of the Bhaiya Ram Munda Foundation in India. Meenakshi is in New York City to speak to the United Nations about the indigenous people she works with in her region in the city of Jharkhand in Northeast India.

Meenaskhi, who is an anthropologist who is studying cross-cultural transitions in local religions and scientific interpretations of phenomenon, had just gotten off a plane after a 15 hour flight from Delhi and was preparing for a speech she would be giving at the United Nations on her work with Indigenous peoples of India. She stopped by our offices to share her story. She shared an interesting story about how local plants, including grass and leaves on trees, glow. People have added a spiritual value to something for which she is curious to determine the scientific origins.

We discussed synergies between the work of Meenakshi’s foundation to help K-12 kids in her region stay in school and that of Science House Foundation, which is working to get kids excited about science and mathematics as a way to help them get interested learning, stay in school, create 21st Century jobs skills and provide kids with new incentives to think about college and future work. We do this by providing teachers with science equipment and connecting them and their to our global digital network of scientists, teachers and students in 25 countries.

Meenakshi is collaborating with Tribal Link, which works independently and in coordination with the United Nations to connect indigenous people around the world.

We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation with Meenaskshi.

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December 2nd, 2012

Support the Future of Science Education with your Tax-Deductible Donation

Collaborator, Dr. Ana Zeri demonstrates the excitement of microscopy to children in the Amazon.

Support Science House Foundation with your end-of-year, tax-deductible contribution. Science House Foundation is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit charity.

Science House Foundation works globally to transform the lives of children around the world by sparking their imaginations about the excitement of science and mathematics.

With your support our work can continue to change the lives of more kids around the world by helping them develop critical skills for reading, collaboration, STEM education, employment, self-esteem and literacy.

Read some of our success stories here. Learn how you can participate here.

Change the world. Make your tax-deductible donation now.

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December 2nd, 2012

MicroGlobalScope Inspires Kids to want to Learn Authentically

Science House Foundation MicroGlobalScope grantee and collaborator Jerry Pavlon-Blum of New York City’s Gateway School describes how our MicroGlobalScope program is changing the lives of his students. In this moving video, Jerry describes how connecting with kids around the world provides surprise incentives for his students, many of whom have social and learning disabilities.

Jerry is also transforming the way that kids think of science. After the science module, Jerry had the students take the microscope to their drama and literature class to think about science as more integrated into their lives. He tells the story of how the kids were so inspired by the integration of art and science that they made a play out of their microscopy discoveries.

Art and Science are augmenting the learning experiences of these kids.

We are thrilled to be collaborating with Jerry and the important work he is doing to take kids on their own terms and help them reach their potential.

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