Cousteau grandson touts science to LI educators

The grandson of legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau Tuesday told a gathering of more than 150 local educators that science education is the key to avoiding disasters such as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Philippe Cousteau Jr. spoke at a professional development event in Bethpage sponsored by Discovery Education and Power to Learn, an initiative developed by Cablevision, Newsday's parent company. The event was designed to help teachers engage students in STEM - science, technology, engineering and math.

Cousteau spoke of the visits he's made to the Gulf after the BP oil spill in April and how the struggles there illustrate the importance of science education.

"The challenges we face today is because we never invested in science in the first place," he told the crowd. "This is why STEM education is so critical as we move forward, so we don't make the same mistakes as in the past."

STEM has become a focus of education policy, as students in the United States continue to lag behind their peers worldwide in these subjects. In January, President Barack Obama announced a $250 million initiative to train math and science teachers to bring students to the top of those fields.

Cousteau, who is Discovery Education's chief spokesman for environmental education, said teachers must try different ways to reach students. "Ten-year-old textbooks don't cut it anymore," he said. "Kids want to learn through multimedia."

Lisa Parisi, a fifth-grade teacher at Denton Avenue School in New Hyde Park, said she tries to get students engaged in STEM by making projects interactive and collaborative.

This year, her class will have a project on different forms of energy, with groups of students conducting experiments and creating a final project using whatever method they like, such as video, to show what they have learned.

"That's when they get excited, when they're given the freedom to choose how to demonstrate the knowledge they've obtained," she said.