Tales from the Trail

In the cool equation, can science equal sports in school?

President Barack Obama today tried to promote math and science as exciting pursuits for America’s youth.

At the Intel Corporation in Oregon, Obama showcased the possibilities by describing his encounters during the visit.

“It gave them a chance to talk about things like quantum ternary algorithms, and it gave me a chance to nod my head and pretend that I understood what they were talking about,” he said.

Then there was the group of seventh-grade girls working on a science project using Legos. “I used to build some pretty mean Lego towers when I was a kid,” Obama said. “I thought I could participate — only these students used their Legos … to build robots that were programmable to model brains that could repair broken bones.”

Maybe the time for scientist star power has come. After all, “The Big Bang Theory” television show about the antics of super smart, geeky, young physicists is wildly popular.

Trying to get the U.S. economy back on track may sometimes seem a bit like reaching for the stars. Well, President Barack Obama today declared that America is facing a “Sputnik moment.”  

Speaking at a community college in North Carolina, Obama said innovation, training and education were vital to economic recovery, giving clean energy technology as an example of a promising area for job creation. “If this is truly going to be our Sputnik moment we need a commitment to innovation that we haven’t seen since President Kennedy challenged us to go to the Moon.”

Obama, who was not born at the time of Sputnik, was trying to make the point that the country needs the same drive to tackle its economy that was used when it responded to the Soviet Union winning early challenges in the space age.

If President Barack Obama ever needs a pick-me-up,  he can visit the campus of an American public high school, as he did on Tuesday at La Follette High School in Madison, Wisconsin, where he remains, indisputably, a rock star.

Shouts of joy and screams of “Obama! Obama!” greeted his motorcade as Obama pulled up and strode across the school’s sports practice fields to meet with members of its teams — the Lancers.  (Team motto: “Attitude, Character, Effort.”)

He first met with members of the girl’s volleyball team, who ran out in their uniforms and knee pads, and squealed with delight as he spoke with them and then posed for pictures.

It’s not quite the glee club or football championship.

U.S. high schools will flex their competitive muscles this spring for a different sort of prize — President Barack Obama as speaker at  this spring’s graduation ceremony.  But to catch that particular brass ring, they will have to show not how well their students can sing or tackle, but make the case for how dedicated they are to providing an excellent education.

The White House announced its  ”Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge” on Friday, which it says “encourages schools to show how they are making great strides on personal responsibility,  academic excellence and college readiness.”

To compete,  applications — consisting of  four essay questions  with a video and other data optional — should be completed by students and submitted by a high school’s principal to www.WhiteHouse.gov/Commencement no later than Monday, March 15 at 11:59 p.m. EST. The White House and Department of Education will select six finalists from among schools that make the deadline. Those six will then be featured on the White House website, where the public will be able to vote for three schools that make the best case. Obama himself will select a national winner, and visit the school to deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2010.

There are certain upsides to life as a first daughter — travel on Air Force One, White House sleepovers, your new dog Bo — but there are definitely downsides, like when you are 11 years old and your dad tells the world about how you got a C on your science test.

Parents could imagine the groans when President Barack Obama veered away from his prepared remarks during a speech at a Wisconsin middle school on Wednesday to talk about his own sixth-grade daughter and her 73.

“So Malia came home the other day.  She had gotten a 73 on her science test,” Obama said.  “Now, she’s a 6th grader.  There was a time a couple years ago when she came home with like an 80-something and she said, ‘I did pretty well.’  And I said, ‘No, no, no.  That’s’ — I said, ‘Our goal is — Our goal is 90 percent and up.’” 

A cloudless sky made a perfect backdrop for a stargazing
party at the White House on Wednesday night. But instead of parading on a red carpet, VIP guests made their way around the South Lawn where earlier in the day astronomers set up telescopes in preparation for the party.

President Barack Obama hosted 150 local middle school students, teachers and astronomers to scan the sky. But first, Obama said there were a “few other stars out tonight,” introducing former astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, and Mae Jemison.

For the president, the event might have been a break from the pressing issues of the day, but he was still working on his political agenda. Obama introduced two students — one who discovered a supernova and another who found a pulsar — and he made a pitch for his education plan.

President Barack Obama opened up to 9th graders at Wakefield High School about what it was like growing up without a father — it forced him to grow up faster, but made him stronger over time.

You’ll recall that his Kenyan father separated from his mother when Obama
was 2 years old and living in Hawaii. Obama said in his book, “Dreams for My Father,” he tried to figure out what his father was like.

Obama met with a group of 9th graders before giving a speech at the Virginia high school and a student asked him about how his education might have been different if his father had been around.

President Barack Obama advised children who want to be president to beware of Facebook.

“I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook,” Obama told a group of ninth graders before making a back-to-school speech at Wakefield High School in Virginia.

“Because in the YouTube age, whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life.  And when you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff. ”

Teacher, author and now television correspondent.

Not a bad resume for a former first daughter .

Former President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Hager, a Baltimore teacher, is joining NBC’s “Today” crew as a correspondent, the show’s executive producer Jim Bell told AP on Sunday.

Hager, 27, will work out of NBC’s Washington bureau, but she won’t be covering politics. Nor does she intend to talk about her eight years under public scrutiny known mostly as one of the Bush Twins.

“I hope to focus on what I’m passionate about because I think I’d do the best job on them — education, urban education, women and children’s issues and literacy,” Hager said.

Topic of the day for the White House: education.

President Barack Obama is unveiling his plans to reform the U.S. education system, which has one of the worst high school dropout rates in the industrialized world.

But while Obama’s education reform plans drew applause on the campaign trail, he might face tough competition for airtime as he is talking at 0945 EDT — roughly the same time as U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks about financial reform.

In his speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, Bernanke said governments needed to take forceful and sometimes coordinated action to heal markets and said sustainable economic recovery was out of reach until the financial system is stabilized.