It Does Not  Have To Be Boring

Hollywood takes its cues from reality, but in this case, the opposite could be happening.  With the rise in popularity of TV shows such as CSI, Numb3rs, and Bones, interest in forensic sciences has increased, especially among the teen age set.  In this case TV influencing real life is a good thing, and some schools and programs have cropped up to cultivate these interests.

 Robotics

Schools such as Montvue Elementary in Pomona, CA are offering robotics classes that combine many disciplines.  Think about it, in real life problems don’t present themselves in the form of “please graph y = x^2 + 3x + 2”, so why are students being trained that way?  These robotics classes integrate math, physics, and engineering.  Not only do they spark initial interest, they also help to maintain enthusiasm.  So often you see a student’s passion for math fade after they are hit with hundreds upon hundreds of practice problems.  Not so with these hands-on classes that show the applicability of equations and formulas.

Read more about Montvue’s robotics program here.

Encourage your school to participate in the FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition), originally founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. 

Forensic Sciences

What you don’t see in all the TV shows is the nitty-gritty work that goes into solving a crime.  Lab results and blood analyses aren’t always clean, and they sure aren’t fast.  But that doesn’t faze the students at New Rochelle High School in New York.  In fact, demand for the school’s forensic science class has skyrocketed.  Combining biology, physics, chemistry, and math, this class is as real a science problem as it gets.  Instead of solving chemical reactions or physics projectile problems in isolation, students are challenged to integrate knowledge across many fields.  And the “problem” isn’t some diagram in a textbook, instead it’s staring them right in the face in the form of a decomposing bird.

Read more about New Rochelle’s forensic class here

Read about the different careers the forensic science field offers here (text heavy but informative).