President Obama has spurred a new endeavor to encourage students to become more interested in the areas of science and math. The worldwide exams that compare educational achievement have shown in the last couple of years that the United States is lagging behind many developed countries. This poor report card has been the stimulus to have teachers try and foster an interest of science and math in their students. These attempts have not shown any improvement

This new initiative called Educate to Innovate is much different than past attempts because it is aimed to engage students outside of the classroom. When students come home from school, they are likely to watch TV, play videogames, and/or play outside. The new initiative will target all of these activities.

The Discovery channel has pledged a 2-hour block of commercial-free programming in their subsidiary channel, the science channel. The Discovery channel hopes to show that their commitment to educational programming goes beyond commercial interests by providing uninterrupted programming.

Outside of the boob tube, the new initiative extends to the multi-million dollar arena of video games. Educate to Innovate will award $300,000 to the best science and math based video game which will be distributed free to students in hopes that they will be come intrigued and excited about the topics covered.

The initiative will also reach out to scientists and educators willing to donate their time to enticing students into performing hands-on experiments in and out of school. Nationallabday.org, founded by the American Chemical Society, is the center for matching scientists and educators to students. Their work will culminate on the proposed National Lab Day, which schools will hold on the first week of May.

Although the quality of teaching needs to improve in the American teaching system, the drive to learn must come from the students themselves. Obama’s new initiative is an interesting take on the challenge to improve the national examination scores that has potential to become a powerful way to reach the nation’s students.