Monthly Archives: December 2020

Black students are severely underrepresented among bachelor’s degree graduates from Florida’s State University System. While 21.6% of the students in the state’s public K-12 system are Black, only 12.2% of the system’s bachelor’s degree grads in 2018-19 were Black, according … Continue reading →

A science teacher at a Florida public high school who I have known and trusted for years asked me to post this reflection anonymously. I have spoken with enough teachers around the state this fall to know that while this … Continue reading →

One of my New Year’s wishes is that 2021 is better than 2020 for Florida’s K-12 teachers. This fall, teachers dealt with the exhausting hybrid teaching model while their anxiety about whether they would become ill was always present just … Continue reading →

If there was ever a year when Florida’s policy-makers, educational leaders, parents and students should see the importance of science and technology in their lives, 2020 would be it. The mRNA vaccines developed by BioNTech and Moderna to battle COVID … Continue reading →

On the first day of my introductory physics course for students majoring in engineering and physical and computational sciences, I ask each of my new students to fill out a survey asking which high school she or he has attended. … Continue reading →

The year 2020 should have been enough to convince Florida’s policy-makers that providing students with opportunities to pursue STEM careers must be a high priority for the state’s educational system. The development of the mRNA technology powering the COVID vaccines … Continue reading →

Florida was ranked 39th among states for the percentage of its workforce in science and engineering occupations in 2019, according to data recently released by the National Science Foundation. That is two spots lower than the state ranked in 2017, … Continue reading →

As an educator, much of my job involves making people uncomfortable. The courses I teach at FSU are called “service courses”. That means that the vast majority of students in my classes are not majoring in physics. Instead, the professors … Continue reading →

Every February, the Florida Department of Education issues a press release about the success of the state’s high school students on Advanced Placement exams taken in May of the previous year. This year’s release was titled “Florida Leads the Nation … Continue reading →