"The best kept secret in Durham, North Carolina" is not so secret anymore as more than sixty educators, community leaders, parents and students from across the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle heard U.S. Rep. David Price's Sept. 6 (D-4th) announcement that the National Science Foundation (NSF) had awarded Shodor a $900,000 grant for a new apprenticeship program. The announcement took place in Shodor's new offices in the Durham Centre. Shodor, a Durham-based organization dedicated to the reform and improvement of science and mathematics education, will use the three-year grant to provide apprenticeship opportunities to more than 100 area high school students in computational sciences and related information technologies. HPC Wire story at http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mid=467391
Related Link: http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mid=467391

The Center for Natural Language Processing (CNLP) of Syracuse University School of Information Studies has announced the release of a beta version of their Content Assignment Tool (CAT). This tool automatically suggests appropriate standards for learning resources such as lesson plans, and has functionality that is useful for collection builders, catalogers, and curriculum developers. CAT allows catalogers to provide the location (url, path), choose which standards source to query (e.g. NSES) as well as further refine the search by grade level. Next, CAT automatically suggests both national and/or state standards for these resources for the user to review for appropriateness (currently 7 sets of standards are available). The user can also browse through a hierarchical list of standards in order to add non-suggested standards to the list for that resource. The user can save these choices to a database, and CAT learns from these vetted assignments to refine future suggestions.

CNLP is working with the DLESE Program Center to create a demo/prototype of the service as an API integrated with the DLESE Collection System (DCS) which will be available by the end of the year.

CNLP utilizes JES & Co.'s ASN XML representation of the standards in our tool, and Natural Language Processing technology to provide automatic and intelligent assignments. If you are interested in downloading the beta version of CAT in which you can test five lesson plans, and get a sense of the tool's capabilities, please send an email to the Project Leader, Anne Diekema, at diekemar@syr.edu.
Related Link: http://nsdl.org

At its recent national meeting the American Chemical Society (ACS), the largest scientific society in the world, announced that the ACS Division of Chemical Education had won the ChemLuminary 'Best Division' award. The award was granted largely for developing the JCE Digital Library (http://www.jce.divched.org/JCEDLib/), which is part of NSDL. The ChemLuminary Awards honor ACS members and volunteers for their efforts on behalf of the Society. The Journal of Chemical Education, published by the Division of Chemical Education since 1924, established four digital library collections in 2004 and three more in 2005. In addition to publishing high quality educational resources, JCE DLib has also resulted in many collaborations with other scientific societies. For the full text of the citation see the Division web site: http://www.divched.org.
Related Link: http://www.divched.org

Offers of jobs, housing, and admission to universities are appearing on this newly created bulletin board (http://www.compadre.org/katrina/) for Physics and Astronomy faculty, postdocs, and students affected by Hurricane Katrina. Its goal is to connect those needing temporary employment, housing, or other support to offers from secondary and higher education institutions, government organizations, and industry.

This effort is being led by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), and aided by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), the American Physical Society (APS), the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and other AIP Member Societies. Technical support is provided by the ComPADRE Digital Library.
Related Link: http://www.compadre.org/katrina/

On Sept. 7 The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) House STEM Caucus luncheon was attended by about 60 congress members and staff in Washington D.C. as the New York Times reported that some of the youngest victims of Hurricane Katrina were entering schools in locations around the country. What could become, "The largest student resettlement in the nation's history," (Dillon, S., "Across Nation, Storm Victims Crowd Schools," New York Times, 9/7/05), disrupting thousands of children's educations, was on everyone's mind as Kaye Howe, Executive Director, NSDL Core Integration, began the presentation by introducing Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), co-chair of the U.S. House of Representatives STEM Caucus. Read more at http://nsdl.org/community/highlights.php

NSDL Principal Investigators will soon receive contact information for their Representative that will let them know whether their Representative is a member of the House STEM Caucus. PIs will be asked to contact their Representative either to thank them for being members or to urge them to consider joining.
Related Link: http://nsdl.org/community/highlights.php

The FunWorks project from Education Development Center, Inc., was recently profiled in the Vocational Training News - one of the premier publications for career and technical education (CTE) practitioners on school-to-work, job training and vocational education issues. Both FunWorks and the NSDL were highlighted as valuable resources to the CTE community. Read the full article at: http://thefunworks.edc.org/SPTUI--FunWorks/funworks/PDFfiles/voca_news.pdf
Related Link: http://thefunworks.edc.org/SPTUI--FunWorks/funworks/PDFfiles/voca_news.pdf

MatDL will present papers and posters at the Materials Research Society Fall Meeting to be held Nov. 28 - Dec. 2 in Boston, MA. MatDL Principal Investigator Laura Bartolo will take part in a panel presentation (Panel Discussion 1) at the Fall MRS Symposium on Materials Science Education. Rosemary Haggett, National Science Foundation, is one of the invited speakers at the Symposium and will be taking part in the Panel Discussion.
Related Link: http://www.mrs.org/meetings/fall2005/program/f05_cfp_pp.html

Conference season is coming back into full swing and with that the need for brochures and fliers for NSDL Projects. Send your materials as soon as possible to: NSDL, attn: Robert Payo, 3300 Mitchell Lane, FL 4, Boulder, CO 80301. This is a great opportunity to showcase new features on your site and co-brand your materials with the NSDL logo. Check out the templates for fliers and posters that you can download off of the community page: http://nsdl.org/community/outreach.php?pager=flier_templates. For more information, contact Robert Payo (rpayo@nsdl.ucar.edu).

Schedule of upcoming conferences where NSDL will be exhibiting:
Oct 5-8, American Association of School Libraries (Pittsburgh)
Oct 15-17, Association of Science and Technology Centers (Richmond, VA)
Oct 26-28, National Science Board Association T + L2 (Denver)
Nov 10-12, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Regional Conference (Denver)
Related Link: http://nsdl.org/community/outreach.php?pager=flier_templates

NSDL's core computer facilities located at Cornell University will be shutdown overnight on Saturday Sept 24th beginning at 6PM EDT in order to upgrade auxillary power and UPS systems.

NSDL.org and associated web sites will be unavailable during this period. The NSDL Data Repository and NSDL OAI services will be similarly off line during the shutdown. Restoration of services is anticipated for early Sunday morning, Sept. 25th.

Technical upgrades to facilities will assure future NSDL "uptime." Concerns regarding this outage can be sent to systems@nsdl.org. The NSDL systems team will facilitate work-arounds wherever possible.
Related Link: http://nsdl.org/

http://www.ed.gov/news/hurricane/index.html Americans continue to show their support and generosity through an unprecedented outpouring of funds, resources, and supplies to the displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina. In Louisiana two leaders in science education-Brenda Nixon from Louisiana State University and Jean May-Brett from the Louisiana State Department of Education-have issued this letter (http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/nstaexpress_2005_09_12_letter.htm) in response to the many inquiries they have received on how to help the schools and students affected by this tragedy.

In addition, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has announced the U. S. Department of Education has launched a "Hurricane Help for Schools" website that will serve as a nationwide clearinghouse to address the needs of affected schools. The website is interactive, allowing affected schools to post their specific needs and allowing students and teachers from schools across the nation to meet those needs. To learn more, visit http://www.ed.gov/news/hurricane/index.html The National Science Foundation's response to Hurricane Katrina can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=in129. --NSTA Express, Sept. 12, 2005
Related Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/hurricane/index.html

Congress is back in session, and Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) and Representative Mark Udall (D-CO) have launched a new recruitment effort on Capitol Hill to encourage their colleagues to join the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education (STEM Ed) Caucus. The STEM Education Caucus is working to promote and improve all areas of science and math education including K-12, higher education, and workforce issues in Congress.

This Caucus is important to K-12 science and math education in a number of ways. It will help to bring valuable visibility to STEM education, provide much needed information to members of Congress, and eventually help to secure much needed funding for science and math education. The strength and effectiveness of the STEM Ed Caucus-and future science and math education initiatives on Capitol Hill-will be influenced by the numbers of Representatives who join this group and work to affect change.

Please take a minute to contact your representative in the U.S. House of Representatives and ask them to join the STEM Ed Caucus.

On September 7, the Ehlers/Udall Dear Colleague letter (http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/colleague2.pdf) was sent to all members in the House of Representatives.

Please send an e-mail (and the Dear Colleague letter (http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/colleague2.pdf) if possible, to your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives asking him or her to join the STEM Ed Caucus.

If your Representative is not on the current list of STEM Ed members (visit http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/nstaexpress_2005_09_12_stemedcaucus.htm for a list of members), please take a minute to send him or her an e-mail at http://www.house.gov (You can also find out who represents you using this address). Include or reference the September 7 Ehlers/Udall letter (http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/colleague2.pdf) in your e-mail.--NSTA Express, Sept. 12, 2005
Related Link: http://www.stemedcaucus.org

Colleges are changing their development curricula to impart more knowledge,but don't expect new graduates to be immediately ready for the real world--Schindler, E., Software Development Times, Sept. 1, 2005
Related Link: http://www.sdtimes.com/article/special-20050901-01.html

On October 9-11 2005 Cornell University Library will host The Janus Conference on Research Library Collections: Managing the Shifting Ground Between Writers and Readers, a forum devoted to re-envisioning collection development in research libraries. The conference planning team chaired by John Saylor, NSDL Director of Collection Development, invites all interested persons to attend the open talks being held in the Statler Auditorium on Cornell's campus on Sunday October 9 beginning at 5 PM.

For the conference schedule and the list of invited participants please see the conference website at http://www.library.cornell.edu/janusconference

The conference planning team also invites you to read and post to the conference blog site at http://janusconference.library.cornell.edu
Related Link: http://www.library.cornell.edu/janusconference

Tapia 2005 will be held October 19-22 in Albuquerque, NM. All areas of computing are of interest for conference participation through papers, posters, and panels. This year the following technical areas will be highlighted: Collaborative and Emerging Technologies, Computational Mathematics and Science, and Multidisciplinary Activities in Computer Science.
Related Link: http://news.taborcommunications.com/ct.jsp?uz1312077Biz1067085

The Conference Organizing Committee for CAA2006 invites you to participate in the Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) to be held in Fargo, ND April 18-21, 2006.

You can participate in the conference by submitting an abstract for a paper presentation, symposium, poster, workshop, or roundtable panel. Or, simply attend to learn more about new developments in computer applications and quantitative methods, and to meet and talk with international colleagues.
Related Link: http://www.caa2006.org/

Individual or group appointments are available. People are encouraged to bring machines that they may have issues with, as well as they are invited to work with the Machine Therapist and a machine she provides for them or finds with them. Among the machines already available for one-to-one sessions is a machine that bites itself to make sure it is still machine, a frustration machine (that can be turned off), an old, relaxing, repetitive motion mortar and pestle machine, and a blender whose motor is controlled by the growling and singing/screaming of the person using it (the blender's motor pitch-tracks the vocalizations of the user in real time).
Related Link: http://web.media.mit.edu/~monster/machinetherapy/