SciTech Tuesday: Real World Science

Last Friday evening, the Museum hosted 27 wonderful teachers of 5th-8th grade students from across the country, and celebrated an incredible week of learning together.

For a week these teachers, from 15 states and the District of Columbia, from public and private schools, urban, suburban and rural schools, spent time learning about new ways of teaching science. At The National WWII museum we are committed to teaching science in the context of history. We believe that when students learn science in this way, with hands-on activities in context, they learn science better, and are more likely to maintain an interest in science.

With the support of The Northrop Grumman Foundation, these teachers came to The National WWII Museum to learn how necessity, knowledge, perseverance and skill lead to inventions, innovation, and careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), just like in World War II. They spent 3 days at the Museum, learning about radar, improvements in aeronautics, new materials, and other innovations of the time. They spent 2 days at the University of New Orleans, learning about current methods to study new materials in the Advanced Materials Research Institute.

When the school year starts, the teachers will lead their students in collecting weather data from today and seventy-five years ago. As part of the Citizen Meteorologist project, they will share data on our Real World Science site to see how weather might be changing over time.

We invite other classrooms to join us in collecting data this year. For more information about Real World Science, or to join the Citizen Meteorologist project, visit our site.

Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.