Upcoming Deadlines:

December 1 – Celebrating High School Innovators

Deadline (innovative100.engineering.illinois.edu/)

December 31 – Family Science Day Exhibitor Deadline

More information can be found at our website:

CeMaST.IllinoisState.edu

Midwest Regional Noyce Connections: Building Commu-

nities of Practice Conference, which was held in

Omaha, Nebraska from October 2nd–3rd. This confer-

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 5

CeMaST Newsletter

Director, Department of Health Sciences), William

Hunter (CeMaST Director, Department of Chemistry),

Sara McCubbins (CeMaST Office and Project Manager,

Department of Chemistry), Allison Antink Meyer

(School of Teaching and Learning), Janet Moore

(University College), Sandra Lucia Osorio (School of

Teaching and Learning), Rebecca Jo Rosenblatt

(Department of Physics), Elisha Swanson (Department

of Chemistry), Matthew Winsor

(Department of Mathematics).

On Tuesday, September 30th, Dr.

Hunter, CeMaST Director, led one

of the breakout sessions for

Professional Development Models

and MSP Project, entitled Imple-

menting the College and Career

Ready Standards—Math and

Science, speaking about the

Illinois Mathematics and Science

Partnership (IMSP) Programs at

Illinois State University aimed at Career and College

Readiness.

While in Washington, Dr. Ryan Brown (CeMaST

Associate Director) and Dr. Allison Antink Meyer, who

are colleagues in the School of Teaching and Learning,

also paid a visit to the Institute of Education Sciences

(IES), the research division of the U.S. Department of

Education, to meet with program officers.

Mathematics and Science Partnerships Program

Conference in Washington

T his fall, 12 representatives from Illinois State

attended the national Mathematics and Science

Partnerships Program Conference in Washington, DC

from September 29th–October 1st. The Mathematics

and Science Partnerships (MSP) program is a federal

grant program of the U.S. Department of Education to

support collaborative partnerships between science,

technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)

departments at institutions of

higher education and high-need

school districts. MSP partnerships

provide teacher professional de-

velopment to improve instruction

and the achievement of students

in mathematics and science. MSP

grant funds are distributed to

state agencies, in our case the

Illinois State Board of Education

(ISBE), who administer the MSP

grant program in their state.

These 12 representatives were composed of CeMaST

staff as well as members of all three colleges who are

involved with MSP programs here at Illinois State,

including: Jeff Barrett (CeMaST Associate Director,

Department of Mathematics), Ryan Brown (CeMaST

Associate Director, School of Teaching and Learning),

Rebekka Darner Gougis (School of Biological

Sciences), David Grieshaber (CeMaST Associate

For the past four years, the Illinois State University

Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, funded

by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has

provided scholarships and mentoring to talented

students who intend to become K–12 mathematics

and science teachers in the Chicago Public Schools.

Under the direction of CeMaST Director Dr. Hunter,

this scholarship has supported more than 40

students who have become teachers in Chicago

Public Schools.

Dr. Hunter served on the organizing committee for the

Midwest Regional Noyce Connections Conference

Since its inception, the Center for Mathematics,

Science, and Technology (CeMaST) has been involved

in the development of integrated curriculum in the

STEM fields, from the development of the Integrated

Mathematics, Science, and Technology (IMaST)

curriculum to the present.

CeMaST’s most recent curricular endeavor to build on

this curriculum is a partnership with TPS Publishing

and Alpha Graphics to produce, promote, and distrib-

ute the Creative Core Curriculum program. The Crea-

tive Core Curriculum consists of a series of textbooks

and curricular materials that specifically address

Common Core Standards for Mathematics grades K–8.

This series of books provide ideas and instructions for

several projects specifically designed to teach and

apply Common Core standards. Each activity allows

the students to work in groups to solve problems as

they design and build products. All activities are

written in a learning cycle format

that requires application of the

Mathematical Practices as defined

by the Common Core Standards.

The Creative Core Curriculum

Mathematics K–5 with Literacy

and STEM has been adopted by

the Florida Department of Educa-

tion, where we are one of only

three programs that have been

adopted for K–5 Mathematics.

The same curriculum was also

CEMAST NEWSLETTER

ence is an opportunity for Noyce project

personnel and participants in the

Midwestern region (which consists of Arkansas,

Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan,

Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio,

Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) to learn and

share strategies with one another, AAAS K-12 STEM

leaders, and national experts in recruiting, preparing,

and retaining new secondary STEM teachers.

The plenary speakers for this conference were

Matt Larson (Lincoln Public Schools, Nebraska),

Taking Action to Ensure Mathematics Works for All;

Alberto Rodriguez (Purdue University), Managing

Sociocultural and Institutional Challenges Through

Sociotransformative Constructivism: A Longitudinal

Case Study of a High School Science Teacher; and Todd

Campbell (University of Connecticut), Explaining

Page 2

adopted as one of 16 programs in Georgia for K–5

Mathematics. The IMaST materials for 6–8 Science

were adopted in New York City. The Creative

Common Core Curriculum has been modified to

address the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

(TEKS) for both mathematics and science, and both

sets of curriculum materials have been adopted from

Kindergarten through eighth grade.

We have plans to submit the Creative Core Curriculum

program to several more states for consideration in

the next year. We plan to submit these curricula to

Louisiana for K–5 Mathematics, California for K–8 Math-

ematics, Georgia for 6–8 Mathematics, and Florida for

6–8 Mathematics.

On the map below, the states that appear in red are

states that have adopted either the IMaST curriculum

or the Creative Core Curriculum. The following states

are using IMaST or Creative Core Curriculum:

California (2 districts, 5 schools),

Georgia (1 school), Massachusetts

(1 school), North Carolina

(1 school), New Jersey (1 school),

and New York (4 schools).

Currently about 5,000 students

are currently using these curricu-

la in pilot schools in California,

5 school districts and 3 schools

are piloting IMaST or Creative

Core Curriculum.

For more information, please visit:

cemast.illinoisstate.edu/educators/

stem/

IMaST and Creative Core Curriculum state adoptions

(red) and pilot districts (yellow pins) and schools

(blue pins).

IMaST and the Creative Core Curriculum Across the Nation

Phenomena and Solving Problems as a Central Shift in

the Next Generation Science Standards Vision for

Science Teaching and Learning.

Conference participants from the Illinois State Noyce

program included Dr. Hunter (PI) and Dr. Robert Lee

(co-PI), who each led sessions, and Dr. Rebekka

Darner Gougis, who represented the STEM faculty for

the program. On Thursday, October 2nd, Dr. Hunter

served as the moderator for the session, Taking the

Next Step: Principal Investigators. Later that afternoon

Dr. Hunter headed the session, Project Management:

Some Lessons Learned and Ideas Shared I, and Dr. Lee

headed the session, Walking Out of the Classroom and

Into the Streets: Bridging the Gap Between Teachers and

Students. The next morning, Dr. Hunter headed the

session, Project Management: Some Lessons Learned

and Ideas Shared II.

Page 3

About the SmartGrid Program Illinois State University has designed and implement-

ed a Smart Grid for Schools program, which offers

schools the opportunity to learn about the new Smart

Grid technology currently being rolled out by the

utilities companies in your area. This program

engages students, Kindergarten–12th grade, with

Smart Grid in a fun, hands-on way and incorporates

the Next Generation Science Standards.

Smart Grid is an electricity

delivery system that uses

special switches and

meters to communicate

with the electric utility.

This two-way communica-

tion technology improves

reliability and will allow

customers to monitor their

usage and prices. Custom-

ers will be able to save

money and enhance

sustainability.

Put your students in-the-

know with our classroom

workshop presented by industry leaders. Our curricu-

lum is designed to captivate young minds with hands-

on activities and experiments to explore electric

utility strategy and planning. We also offer training to

help teachers incorporate our curriculum into their

own lesson plans for an in-depth unit of classroom

study.

For more information about the program, please visit:

cemast.illinoisstate.edu/educators/

development/smart-grid.shtml

SmartGrid in Your School SmartGrid for Schools has been visiting schools since

mid-September of this year. We have interacted with

Grades 1–12 at a variety of schools including STEM

academies and public, urban, and rural schools. We

mostly interact with math and science classes, but we

have worked with technical and engineering classes

as well.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014

The students find the

displays engaging and

dive into the material with

enthusiasm. They demon-

strate an understanding of

the electrical grid, Smart

G r i d , a n d e n e r g y

consumption in the home

after working through the

program. Some students

are able to spend a full

class period at either the

rooms or the grid table,

and some classes only

have a few minutes at

each, depending on the

flexibility of the teachers’ schedules. Depending on

how many other teachers decide to visit the program,

we will visit a school between 1 and 5 days at a time.

SmartGrid for Schools initially only had summer

professional development workshops, but due to

the overwhelming response to the program, we have

visited Alton, Moline, and Champaign this fall to train

more teachers in the curriculum. We are available for

spring workshops if there is a group of teachers that

would like to be certified in the SmartGrid curriculum.

The program is available for bookings through May

2015 by certified teachers.

For more information, please contact:

Lindsay Longstreth

lelongs@ilstu.edu

Center for Mathematics, Science, and

Technology

210 W. Mulberry St.

Campus Box 5960

Normal, IL 61790-5960

Phone: 309-438-3089

Fax: 309-438-3592

E-mail: cemast@ilstu.edu

For m ore new s a nd i n form at i on ,

V i s i t our w ebs i t e :

C eMa ST . I l l i no i s S t a t e . e du

Join Us for Family Science Day 2015 Last year, we were able to offer our event for FREE! As

a result, we saw more than 3,000 visitors throughout

the duration of our event. This year’s event will take

place on Saturday, April 11th, in Redbird Arena,

Normal, IL. This family-friendly event encourages

scientific discovery through hands-on activities,

challenges, and demonstrations while providing the

opportunity to learn about scientific careers from

actual research scientists and science educators. This

year’s highlights include:

Interactive Exhibit Gallery—We will transform

Redbird Arena into a giant exhibit gallery highlighting a variety of science, technology,

engineering, arts, and mathematics topics at hands-

on, interactive stations. Past exhibitor highlights

include NASA, the Museum of Science and Industry,

the St. Louis Science Center, and the State Farm

Innovation Team.

Bot Brawl 2015—Family

Science Day is happy to be the

venue again for the Central

Illinois Robotics Club (CIRC)

Bot Brawl Tournament. This

robotics tournament is one of

the largest hobby robotics

competitions in the country and

includes RC combat, sumo

robotics, autonomous line

following, and more.

Bottle Challenge—The Coca-Cola Company re-

cently launched a campaign to make practical use of

empty Coke bottles. We would like to see an inno-

vative model that puts your old bottles to good use.

There’s no limit to the number of bottles you can use

or the size of your creation, so let your imagination

run wild! More details coming soon to our website.

Exhibitors: We are currently seeking exhibitors. For

more information, visit www.familyscienceday.com. The best part is that exhibiting is FREE! We have lim-

ited space, so exhibits will be filled on a first-come,

first-serve basis. The deadline to sign up as an exhibi-

tor is December 31st.

Introducing the Spark! Festival: This year’s Family

Science Day event will be the culminating event

for the Spark! Festival, a week-long celebration of

science, technology, engineering, the arts, and

mathematics (STEAM) as rich

dimensions of everyday life

and culture in central Illinois. We

encourage you to learn more

about the variety of events

that will be a part of this new

festival and to consider ways in

which you can sponsor or

participate. Learn more at

www.igniteyourcuriosity.com.