Science

Gaming is hot right now — even in the lab-coat world of science education. The MdBio Foundation, a private charitable organization for promoting science learning and workforce development, is building an online video game for high school students. They plan to build a half-dozen games that can reach millions of students across the state and the country. The group sees science-based video games as a way to help improve education in the STEM fields, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Visitors to the Maryland Science Center's "SpaceLink" exhibit had an extra source to answer questions about Mars rover Curiosity on Monday -- a scientist who helped develop one of its instruments. Jennifer Stern, a space research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, was on hand with a model of Curiosity and a life-size version of one of its wheels. Stern is part of a team that has worked on the  Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, a set of three instruments that will be used to analyze rock and soil samples from the Martian surface.

They called it the "seven minutes or terror" for the complex maneuverings and rocket blasts conducted in the final moments of a 354 million mile journey from home, but the Curiosity rover executed its landing flawlessly. Those who doubted U.S. preeminence in space exploration — or even in science and engineering in an era of outsourcing and global competition — should pay heed. Too bad there was no film crew on the surface of Mars (at least as far as we distant earthlings can tell)

Heather Kelleher of Francis Scott Key High School and Don'a Martin of North Carroll High School were among 30 science teachers in Maryland who went to Frostburg State University last month for the Improving Teaching Quality Through Training Opportunities in Physics and Physical Science workshop. Middle and high school teachers participate to upgrade knowledge, learn to integrate technology into lessons and develop strategies. The workshop was funded through the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

Baltimore City Community College has received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to help prepare minority students for careers in science, technology, engineering and math. The grant, announced Monday by Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin, will fund 126 scholarships over a five-year period for programs such as robotics and computer-aided design and drafting. In announcing the grant, Mikulski said she is "so proud of BCCC's leadership in preparing today's students for tomorrow's careers.

Gov. Martin O'Malleycorrectly flags STEM fields - science, technology, engineering and mathematics - as critical economic enablers, and an administrative priority. Thus, it was good news when Towson University recently won a $2 million grant to study science instruction. They'll find better ways to teach traditional sciences, just asUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore County leads the nation with teaching mathematics. Unfortunately, the future is not bright for one key STEM area: computer science.

Each garden is a reflection of its creator, and that is especially true of Rick Archambault's. The retired middle school principal spent many years teaching science, and is constantly experimenting with new plants. He calls himself a collector, and at the moment he is collecting Asiatic plants. When he started gardening 30 years ago, he experimented with fruit trees. "I've had a myriad of things just because I like to see how things grow," he explains. He grew apples, nectarines and peaches, but eventually he grew tired of the spraying and pruning, and turned to flowers.

Jeanette Elizabeth Aska, a Baltimore City high school biology and physics teacher, died of lung cancer July 3 at Seasons Hospice at Northwest Hospital. The Owings Mills resident was 60. Born on St. John's, Antigua, she was a 1970 graduate of Charlotte Amalie High School at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. She studied at Blackburn College in Illinois and in 1976 she earned a bachelor's degree from Morgan State University. She also had a master's degree in education from Goucher College.

Whatever goes up must come down — just not always in the condition one hoped. That's the lesson Paul Warren, the 16-year-old from Maryland whose science experiment was launched into space in May, learned Friday when the materials of his project — test tubes, packing liquids and roundworms by the thousand — returned after having spent nearly seven weeks aboard the International Space Station. The experiment, he learned, had never been activated. "I don't know if I've ever been this frustrated," he said shortly after opening the box he had been waiting for since it landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday.

Mary Ann Rankin, a former longtime administrator at the University of Texas at Austin known for creating the innovative UTeach program to produce math and science teachers, was named provost at the University of Maryland, College Park. Rankin, who will start as College Park's No. 2 academic administrator in October, is currently the CEO of the Dallas-based National Math and Science Initiative. Like UTeach, the public-private partnership was designed to produce more graduates and teachers in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)