Education and Technology

This applies to high school, but can it relate to elementary school classes?

Students who had more math courses in high school did better in all types of science once they got to college, researchers say.

On the other hand, while high school courses in biology, chemistry or physics improved college performance in each of the individual sciences, taking a high school course in one science didn’t result in better college performance in the others.

Source: Want to be good at science? Take lots of math – MSNBC

Enjoying math myself, I see the relationship of math being the foundation for all the sciences. It gives the student a base of analytical understanding. In elementary school, the students are just learning what science and math are, but a good foundation in math would certainly help a student feel more comfortable with science as they start to learn it.

At our school we use a multitude of programs to help the students learn math, especially when it is a major part of the FCAT in Florida. They run the gambit of knowledge levels from pre-K to 6th grade and from easy to hard within each program. Ones that are used everyday include Harcourt Math, FASTT Math and SuccessMaker.

All three are very successful, but the one the kids like the most is FASTT Math because it is like a game to them. They like to do it, so they spend more time trying to do the best they can at it. You advance by being able to answer math questions fast, but also correctly. Here are a couple of screen shots.

I see this as a beginning to understanding science, but also creating students that are more organized and analytical. Maybe these studies need to be moved to the elementary level. That is the place where the learning foundation starts.

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Technorati tags: Math, Science, k12 Education, Educational Technology, Education