Monday, April 20, 1998 | 10:15 a.m.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Federico Pena huddled in front of a computer screen with 10-year-old Markland Fridae. Markland had just met Pena -- the boy's parents handled the introduction -- and together the two explored the Department of Energy's new web site devoted to teaching students the properties of energy.
Awash in the commotion of the National Science Teachers Association convention Friday on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Cabinet member and the Winters, Calif., third-grader ran lessons on electricity and magnetism.
"The Department of Energy has all these scientists and all this world-class information, and we're very concerned about science education," Pena said in an interview later. "The Department of Energy has a lot to bring to the effort."
Pena was a speaker at the nation's largest science teacher convention, which began Thursday and continued through Sunday in Las Vegas. About 15,000 educators from across the country gathered to swap ideas and brainstorm about the best ways to spark student interest in science.
Other speakers included television personalities Bob Vila and Bill Nye the Science Guy, astronaut Mae Jemison, Congress' youngest member Harold Ford, Jr., and Donna Shirley, manager of the Mars exploration program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Pena, whose children attend a public science and math magnet school in Alexandria, Va., also touted an initiative that brings science students and teachers in contact -- in person and online -- with some of the 30,000 scientists, technicians and engineers in the Department of Energy. The $50 million program has yet to win approval in Congress.
"I believe we need to find creative and constructive ways to support you, the teachers," Pena told a half-full convention ballroom. "We in government need to go the extra mile to provide you the tools and resources you need every day."
Famed television tool man Bob Vila stopped at the convention to promote the two-year-old Young Inventors program, a national contest that encourages students to use science to invent new tools. Vila judges the program in June.
"The math and science areas are critical areas for us to be focused on," said Vila, an author and host of the syndicated TV show "Bob Vila's Home Again." "We wanted to get kids thinking that they can have careers, maybe not as an inventor, but as a researcher, developer, even a merchant."
Vila said his interest in science goes back to third-grade, when he decided he wanted to be an architect.
"Mixing a batch of cement with your father is a science project," Vila said.
Vila, now the father of three in Cambridge, Mass., said that his parents were an important part of his education as grew up in Miami.
"I was fortunate growing up in the 50s in a pretty stable home environment," Vila said as he walked to an autograph session on the convention exhibition floor. "I wasn't stressed out by the age of 13 like a lot of kids are stressed out today. When I was growing up, you had an hour and a half of homework and then you could watch Sea Hunt."
Vila fans packed the standing-room only lecture hall where Vila spoke.
"I'm here for two reasons -- one, because I'm considering using a young inventors program in my classroom," said Gardnerville sixth-grade teacher Cindy Orr. "Two, to see Bob Vila, that's always cool. My daughters love Bob Vila and Tim Allen."
Local science teachers said the convention gave them exposure to new teaching techniques.
"The most crowded sessions are the ones where you get to do stuff," said Belinda Duncan, science teacher at Hoggard Elementary, a math and science magnet school in Las Vegas.
Duncan last week tried out a new lesson on the tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur using educational materials just released from the Field Museum in Chicago, where scientists are studying the largest T-rex fossil ever found.
Duncan joined Field Museum specialist Peter Laraba at a Friday session to discuss the fossil discovered in 1990 in South Dakota, commonly known as "Sue."
Duncan said her students loved the lesson and were fascinated by dinosaurs.
"They're a mystery, they're large, and these kids grew up with 'The Lost World' and 'Jurassic Park,'" Duncan said. "Science can be exciting -- depends how you teach it."
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