Battelle for Kids Executive Director Jim Mahoney likes to quote Albert Einstein who said, “Not everything that counts can be counted.” That’s especially true for effective teachers, says Mahoney.

“They gauge and fit their instruction to meet the needs of kids,” he says. “They are able to set targets and do lots of formative assessments with kids; they’re continually assessing kids as they go. These folks are not trying to drill and suck every last multiple choice question out of a kid, they are truly innovative and creative – those things are not the enemy of learning.”

Mahoney says that for the past year Battelle has been gathering information from 37 urban, suburban and rural school districts to find teachers who’ve achieved the greatest academic growth from their students. Now Battelle is developing online courses that will help other teachers implement creative ways of learning.

“Me and some colleagues came out here and buried the bodies in May,” Jules Angel said.

Angel is the forensics camp coordinator, with ten years of experience as a crime scene photographer for Scotland Yard, and another ten as an archaeologist. She buried the bodies months ago so they would adjust to their environment before the camp.

“Of course they’re not real bodies, they’re just Halloween skeletons dressed up in clothing,” she said.

Angel knows how to set up a good crime scene. For some of her students, excavating these plastic victims of foul play has been the highlight of the eleven day camp.

Kelsie Polak will be a freshman at Metro High School this fall. She enjoys the sense of discovery as she and her team uncover their skeleton.

“Well the digging is really fun because I like it when we find new stuff and it makes me feel really smart and stuff,” Polak said.

Fun is good, but camp sponsors and organizers, which include Metro High School, Battelle, Ohio State University Department of Anthropology and the PAST foundation, have an ulterior motive. Camp Coordinator Angel says it’s about science.

“The idea behind it is to try and get students interested in science,” Angel said. “There were some figures out not so long ago which sort of said about 17% of students were interested in science, which is not a lot. So this is a way of really getting a hands-on application of many different types of science.”

Not only is it hands-on, forensic science is fashionable, with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation hovering among the most popular TV shows.

“The kids are very into CSI, they’re very into Law and Order,” Angel said. “They’re very into all those kind of shows on TV that depict forensic science. So we have our hook right there. So we can bring them in and show them how a real CSI works.”

They’ve caught on quickly that the TV version isn’t quite accurate. DeJane Daniel will be a freshman at Metro High School this fall.

“When you actually see CSI, and then after you’ve done all these things you look at it and you’re like that was so wrong, and everything,” Daniel said. “You’re like that’s so unreal. But I still like the show. It’s alright.”

Daniel says she’s not good at science, and is more interested in the crime scene photography. Yet her favorite part of the camp was extracting DNA from blood and looking at it on an electrophoresis gel. On the final day of the camp, the students will take their evidence before a panel of lawyers, to see whether their case holds up.

A number of Democrats have called on the president to release oil from the emergency reserve to ease tight market conditions, but the White House has repeatedly refused.

The impact of high energy prices is particularly high in manufacturing states like Ohio.

Bush’s audience sat quietly through most of his speech as he spoke of technical alternatives like hydrogen fuel, biodiesel and clean coal.

But he drew loud applause from supporters when he said Congress should allow drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge. (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)