How cool is math?

Dallas Morning News: Away from headlines about Iraq, Israel and immigration, the Bush administration is betting the farm on another issue: ramping up America's scientific and technological IQ.
The plan contains several elements, the latest being the panel Education Secretary Margaret Spellings recently appointed to determine how schools can best teach math.
Former University of Texas president Larry Faulkner heads up the group. And its report will be as crucial as all the recent literature about how to best teach reading.
Southern Methodist University's engineering dean, Geoffrey Orsak, makes a living digging into math and science instruction, and, when he stopped by our offices last week, he offered ideas the Bush panel would do well to include.
First, make math and science relevant. Kids spend their days living in a world of computers and technology, Dr. Orsak says, but most of their science classes focus on the natural world. Schools need to get them into experiments that relate to their lives.
Cellphones
For example, get them designing and building cellphones. Students can do this, he says, and it shows them how engineering is not a geeky topic. It affects how they live.
Curriculum also matters. Not only does rigor count; years of math and science instruction should build upon one another. Abilities to master calculus start in elementary school, where children should acquire the skills that will allow them to progress into algebra, geometry and calculus.
You'd think this happens, but not always. Creating sequential pathways remains a big challenge. It's hard, for example, to expect students to succeed in a college-prep science class if they haven't had a good ninth-grade biology class.
Dr. Orsak calls this getting into the "natural food chain." And kids get it, he says. They see that engineering can be cool.