At the second annual White House science fair on 7 February, President Obama pledged new measures that will in the coming decade increase by 1 million the number of US degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math and train 100 000 new STEM teachers. Addressing more than 100 top-finishing students from more than three dozen science fair competitions across the US, Obama called for 'an all-hands-on-deck approach' to STEM. 'Let's train more teachers. Let's get more kids studying these subjects. Let's make sure these fields get the respect and attention they deserve,' he said.
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In conjunction with the fair, Obama announced that his budget proposal for fiscal year 2013 includes $80 million in new funding to support effective STEM teacher preparation programs through the Department of Education. Also for STEM teacher preparation, the president announced the commitment of $22 million by a group of businesses and foundations led by the Carnegie Corp of New York. And he proposed a new $60 million, K–16 education initiative, to be administered jointly by NSF and DOE, that will develop, validate, and scale up evidence-based approaches to improve learning at K–12 and undergraduate levels.
'You guys inspire me,' Obama told the high-school and middle-school students after he toured through the more than 30 exhibits on display. 'When you work and study and excel at what you're doing in math and science, when you compete in something like this, you're not just trying to win a prize today. You're getting America in shape to win the future,' Obama said.
Among the event's exhibitors was 17-year-old Marian Bechtel from Hempfield High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who developed a seismic-acoustic method for detecting buried land mines. She used a concrete vibrator to generate seismic waves in a corner of an outdoor test bed, in which mock land mines were buried. When a handheld device containing two microphones is swept horizontally over the test bed, it detects the sound generated by the resonating mines. Her tests showed that centering the microphones over a mine caused a null in the sound, thus pinpointing the mine's location. Bechtel said she got the idea for the device while she was playing the piano. She observed how the strings of a nearby banjo resonated when certain piano keys were struck. 'My main goals were simplicity and low cost,' she says, noting the device was built from off-the-shelf components for about $400. She is aware of the threat posed by land mines because she has cousins who live in Mozambique, which is heavily mined due to decades of conflict.
Mina Apostadiro is a member of a team from Kohala Middle School in Kapaau, Hawaii. The team took first place in its division at the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge. The students called their project '6000 in 60,' because they aimed to collect 6000 batteries in 60 days. Following a public outreach campaign on the environmental harm caused by improper battery disposal, the group found that 80% of survey respondents expressed a willingness to pay extra to ensure proper disposal. 'That was encouraging,' says Apostadiro.
Also exhibiting at the White House was Texas's Presidio High School rocketry team, a finalist in the Team America Rocketry Challenge for each of the past three years. For the contest, which is sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, participants design, construct, and launch a rocket that will carry a raw egg to an altitude of 229 meters for at least 40–45 seconds. The rocket and egg payload then must return undamaged to Earth, using only a 38-cm-diameter parachute. According to Obama, Presidio is the fourth poorest school district in Texas, and most of its students speak English as a second language. Team member Ana Nieto says that participating in rocketry helps students to strengthen their skills not only in mathematics and science but also in English.
The top 24 performers in the rocketry challenge are invited to NASA's Student Launch Initiative, where they design, build, and fly rockets to an altitude of one mile (1.6 km). One team in the NASA program, from Rockwall-Heath High School in Texas, wrapped its rocket with flexible solar cells to determine how a solar power generator would perform at high altitudes. Senior Brandon Fisher says the experiment showed a positive correlation between electricity output and altitude. 'There is a definite field of potential solar energy research in high altitude rocketry,' he says, pointing to the possibility of self-sustaining aircraft and rockets.
Another exhibitor, 15-year-old Anand Srinivasan (pictured in photo with Obama) from Roswell High School in Georgia, controlled a homemade robotic arm by coupling data recorded from an electroencephalography of his brain with computer software he wrote.
