Exercise: Solar Car Kits

Possibly an individual or team exercise. Here is an example of a web site selling kits:
http://sunwindsolar.com/solar_sales_us/products.php?m=a8567ec888

Tumblr.

Check out Tumblr, a blogging website.

“Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme’s HTML.”

Repeating the exercises.

Encourage the students to repeat the exercises such as the 30 Circles periodically to see how their creativity is growing. See if they can come up with new and innovative designs that show that they are thinking more broadly.

Talk: Toxicants Basics

What are the kind of typical chemicals they may encounter and how dangerous are they?

Food (PAH vs toxins)

School science classes

Fossil Fuel Combustion Pollution

Water Pollution

Wastewater (eg, sewage)

Salt water (eg, sea water(

Rain water (eg, acid rain)

Plastics

Animal Toxins

Pictionary – Redesigned

I am considering using Pictionary or Pictionary Junior as a platform for students to explore their creativity by adapting the game to teach environmental knowledge, and perhaps even in their own language. The main idea is to develop a new set of cards that streamline thought and actions related to the environment. Examples of words include “air”, “water”, “dirty”, “pollution”, “waste”, “recycle”, “plastic”, etc.

TEDTalk: Tim Brown on creativity and play

Some great exercises to delve into creativity in a playful manner. I think the “draw your neighbor” and “30 circles” exercises are fun and easy.

The Finger Blaster is something I could perhaps design an exercise for.

Tim Brown is the CEO of innovation and design firm IDEO, taking an approach to design that digs deeper than the surface. Having taken over from founder David E. Kelley, Tim Brown carries forward the firm’s mission of fusing design, business and social studies to come up with deeply researched, deeply understood designs and ideas — they call it “design thinking.”

WSJ: Humans: Why They Triumphed

Came across an interesting article in the WSJ Weekend Journal (May 22-23, 2010) titled “Humans: Why They Triumphed” by Matt Ridley. It mentions the idea of “collective intelligence” where innovation is part of evolution and its rate of change is affected by shifts of cultures and populations, often energized by trade and urbanization. A particularly stimulating remark was how “nobody” knows how a pencil is made – despite it being so widely used (so I went and looked – I recommend this Science Channel video). Anyway, back to youth creativity…with the belief that youth are an untapped creativity resource, it makes sense therefore to put them in groups formed from different unfamiliar sub-groups and encourage invention through their discovery and exchange of each others’ cultural backgrounds.

2010 Intel ISEF

Spent two days this week as a Grand Awards Judge in the Environmental Sciences area of the Intel ISEF (International Science and Engineering Fair) that was in San Jose, CA this year. It was my first Intel ISEF experience. The main theme of this event is “innovation”, and the finalist students and projects represented the current best. I am most impressed by the broad representation. However, I am left feeling that there is a lack of tools to assist the students to focus their energy and maximize the potential of their creativity. From problem definition to experimental design to data analysis and interpretation, and to managing the project, the students need clear guidance in these areas to help them focus their independent creative and critical thinking. For an event such as Intel ISEF, I believe an age-appropriate definition of “innovation” is also needed. Innovation for these students should be based on the elements (knowledge, tools)  in their “sandbox” and be a personal statement to their peers.

WSJ: The Case for Saturday School

Appearing in the Saturday/Sunday, March 20-21, 2010 issue of the Wall Street Journal (pages W1 and W2), this article, “The Case for Saturday School”, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. argues for additional time spent learning in school including more hours per day, more days per week and year. This essentially amounts to extended daycare. In particular, the comparison to education systems in other countries such as Singapore is weak. Students from Singapore fair better in the US standardized tests because they have a superior examination-based system that preps them over the course of two years, and includes timely “mock” examinations and a sabbatical to study for the exams. Further, students in Singapore typically have private tuition after-school and on weekends. The result has been students who have no opportunity to think creatively or critically, and who shy away from the challenges of leadership because of social and academic risks. In the US, an innovative model for educational reform is needed, and more time in school may be a great part of the plan, but it should be dedicated to creative and critical thinking, and not to out-compete students from other countries.

Time: Should Schools Bribe Kids?

The cover story of the April 19, 2010 issue of Time Magazine reports on cash incentivisation in elementary and middle schools to raise academic performance. The article written by Amanda Ripley is titled “Is Cash The Answer?” It traces an experiment conducted by Professor Roland Fryer, Jr. at Harvard’s Department of Economics whereby students were paid money for a wide variety of behaviors such as attendance, reading and test performance. I support the notion that this is an interesting experiment and the results fascinate my interest in psychology. However, any hint that this is for the purpose of sustainable educational reform is objectionable from my viewpoint. Mainly, it amplifies an adult obsession for monetary reward which erodes at the effort to preserve and foster youthful creativity and leadership. Further, it does not help students achieve “placement” as I have diagrammed in an earlier post about leadership by age stages. I would suggest that monetary rewards distorts any vision of leadership and retards progress towards harnessing creativity potential. Using a chemical toxicology analogy, the cash is a xenobiotic toxicant (ie, unnatural) that enters the body and acts as a stimulus, but hinders normal body life function such as growth, disease resistance, and even intelligent thought. As with real toxicants, the effects are even more devastating in young children. Think harder. There’s got to be a better way.