They’re too young to vote, but they’re already designing cancer-fighting therapies, solar-powered cars and robots to combat distracted driving. One team of students cooked and sold tamales to raise enough money to build a better wheelchair for a classmate with disabilities. Another built a water-efficient toilet out of bubble wrap, plexiglass and PVC piping. President Obama honored these and other students at the first-ever White House Science Fair on Monday, kicking off a week of events focused on science, math, engineering and technology (STEM) education. The award-winning projects were plucked from a series of nationwide competitions. They are part of an effort to show that the White House is taking science seriously. In the State Dining Room, students explained the science of rocketry, photodynamic therapy and hydroelectric power to the president, using poster board diagrams and model simulations. At one point, he proposed testing a soccer ball-kicking robot by directing it toward the press pool. “Let’s just point it this way and see what happens,” he joked. Obama followed the exhibit with a speech in the East Room to an audience that included Energy Secretary Steven Chu and National Science Foundation Director Subra Suresh. In science and math, “we’ve been outpaced by our competitors,” he said, adding that his goal is to move America from the middle to the top in science education. The US lags behind other nations in K-12 STEM education; international comparisons …
They're too young to vote, but they're already designing cancer-fighting therapies, solar-powered cars and robots to combat distracted driving. One team of students cooked and sold tamales to raise enough money to build a better wheelchair for a classmate with disabilities. Another built a water-efficient toilet out of bubble wrap, ...
