Contact: Scott Lorenz, Westwind Communications Book Marketing, 734-667-2090, scottlorenz@westwindcos.com  

DENVER, May 2, 2011 /Standard Newswire/ -- The observance of National Lab Day on May 19, 2011, aims at promoting the critical need to do better teaching science and science lab skills to America's young people.

National Lab Day is a volunteer initiative to organize support for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers and to connect them with STEM professionals who will share their expertise as well as their excitement and passion for their disciplines.

Among those engaged in promoting the importance of lab science is Hands-On Labs, Inc. (www.LabPaq.com), a pioneering firm based in Denver that develops science lab tools for online science classes for college and high school students.

To promote National Lab Day, Hands-On-Lab personnel will be traveling for workshop presentations in Raleigh, N.C., on May 19 and in Phoenix, AZ, on May 20.

National Lab Day was established as a response to a call to action by President Obama while speaking at the National Academy of Sciences in April 2009. The President urges educators "to bring more high-quality, hands-on, and discovery-based lab experiences to students" and added that "the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow."

Hands-On Lab sells over 30,000 LabPaqs a year as lab kits for online science courses. Currently more than 200 universities are using LabPaqs.

"In observing National Lab Day in 2011 it is very clear that higher education science instruction and lab work must be delivered online," says Linda Jeschofnig who with husband Peter Jeschofnig co-founded Hands-On-Labs, Inc. "If we don't begin now to teach science courses, along with a full lab component, online then we will continue to fall behind in equipping our science students to contribute to America's return as a world leader."

Linda Jeschofnig and husband Peter co-authored Teaching Lab Science Courses Online: Resources for Best Practices, Tools and Technology (ISBN 978-0-470-60704-6, 2011, Jossey-Bass/Wiley  Publishers, www.josseybass.com, $28, 176 pages).

About Hands-On-Labs, Inc.
Hands-On-Labs, Inc. is an industry leader in distance science experimentation that designs and produces academically aligned LabPaqs for college and high school distance science courses. The company was founded by Linda and Dr. Peter Jeschofnig, Pioneers in online education, both are retired educators and co-founders of the Institute for Excellence in Distance Science Education, a nonprofit dedicated to professional development for distance science instructors.