Because YOU MATTER!!

Big Picture Every student will be scientifically literate and be on a clear college readiness path in May 2014! Who me?? Yes YOU!

You need to be ready to serve our neighborhoods, nation and world. You deserve opportunities, and the world deserves your talents…don’t cheat us out. We’re waiting on you!

College To have this as an option: Must past all OGTs Graduate from High School Score well on the SAT and/or ACT Have extracurricular and enriching experiences Financial Aid Colleges want students who are READY! They give money to students who are BEYOND READY!

Enrichment Opportunities Everyone should engage in an enrichment activity this summer, science or otherwise. A few options for students with a serious interest in science. NOAA Center For Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) Careers Camp at Howard University Student Conservation Association Northeast Ohio Research Education Medicine Alliance (NEOREMA) Youth Technology Academy at Cuyahoga Community College

Score the ACT 1. B 2. F 3. D 4. J 5. B 6. H 7. C 8. G 9. C 10. F 11. D 12. J 13. C 14. G 15. A 16. H 17. A 18. G 19. B 20. F 21. D 22. H 23. B 24. G 25. D 26. J 27. D 28. F 29. C 30. J 31. B 32. G 33. B 34. F 35. D 36. F 37. B 38. H 39. A 40. G

College Readiness The ACT Test tests College Readiness A Science ACT score of 24 is considered College Ready Colleges want to enroll students who are ready, lets make sure we’re ready!

Science OGT Last year, only 25 % of 10 th graders passed the Science OGT. Last year, only 58% of 12 th graders had passed the Science OGT. EVERYONE must pass this test to graduate high school! Everyone should gain 1.5 years between their first NWEA this month and at the end of the year.

I’ve never liked science… I’ve never been very good at science… I’ve never been good at school… So what? This can change!! YOU can change this!!

Malleable? Function: adjective Etymology: from Latin (malleare to hammer) 1 : capable of being extended or shaped by beating with a hammer or by the pressure of rollers 2 : having a capacity for adaptive change

How do you think Barack Obama got smart? Do you think he’s a natural, or that he exerted tremendous effort? Explain.

Malleable Intelligence: Reading Makes You Smarter My mother [would] wake me up at 4:30 in the morning, and we'd sit there and go through my lessons. And I used to complain and grumble. And she'd say, well this is no picnic for me either, buster. President Barack Obama

What do you know about Malcolm X? What do you think of him? Did Malcolm X read a lot? When did he start reading?

Reading Makes You Smarter I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional… [So] in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk… I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. Malcolm X

True/False.

Reading Makes You Smarter Facts from recent studies: A landmark study released in 2000 by the Alzheimer’s Association examined pairs of elderly twins in which one had dementia and the other was healthy. Twins who later became demented read fewer books. Reading habits between the ages of six and eighteen are crucial predictors of cognitive function decades later (Neergaard 2001). According to the Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools all this recent research “indicates that the volume of reading affects general cognitive development” (p. 186).

The New York Times, May 1, 2009 Some people live in romantic ages. They tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, certain paragons of greatness — Dante, Mozart, Einstein — whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension, who had an other-worldly access to transcendent truth, and who are best approached with reverential awe. We, of course, live in a scientific age, and modern research pierces hocus-pocus. In the view that is now dominant, even Mozart’s early abilities were not the product of some innate spiritual gift. His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers. What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had — the ability to focus for long periods of time... * What do you wonder about, in the reading? * Can you assume anything based on reading this text? * What is the most important information in the text? * What is the text saying? * Do you agree with this text?

The latest research [shows that] the key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark… Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft. The recent research has been conducted by people like K. Anders Ericsson, the late Benjamin Bloom and others. It’s been summarized in two enjoyable new books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle; and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin… This research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we’re “hard-wired” to do… But the brain is also phenomenally plastic [i.e., MALLEABLE!]. We construct ourselves through behavior. As Coyle observes, it’s not who you are, it’s what you do. * What is the text saying? * What does intelligence mean to you? * What is the most important information in the text? * Do you agree with this text? * Did this reading change your mind in any way?

Time spent reading and test scores: Percentile Rank Minutes of Reading each day Words Read per year ,733, ,357, ,168, , , ,000 What do you think of these figures? Could you read for 90 minutes/night? Why or why not?

To sum it up: You read— you get smarter. Period.

Reading Prepares You for the World Students who graduate with the ability to read and think critically will be at an advantage in the New Economy. The next generation of unskilled workers runs a much higher risk of being unemployed than ever before in our nation’s history. Check out these statistics:

Jobs in the United States: DecadeProfessional JobsSkilled JobsUnskilled Jobs 1950’s20% 60% 1990’s20%60%20% 2010???

More Numbers: Education LevelMedian Career Salary No HS Diploma$24,492 High School Diploma $33,904 Bachelor’s Degree$55,432 Doctoral Degree$84,448 Professional Degree$90,220 What degree do you want to get? What do you think you’ll need to do to get it?

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. Malcolm X

Reading, thinking, discussing—in this class— is an investment in your future!