captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> wooduff: a wave of deadly attacks by islamic state militants puts egypt on edge. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. also ahead this wednesday: from health care to marriage, a historic term for the supreme court comes to a close. we talk with president obama's point person on healthcare secretary sylvia burwell, and review the high court's year. >> we found many of the big cases this term that the justices on the right don't march in lock step when it comes to interpreting the constitution. >> wooduff: plus, teaching for

the whole brain-- educators harness discoveries in neuroscience to improve how students learn. >> the more you talk, the more students you lose, so we use different methods to engage different parts of the brain and that way you get 100% engagement. >> wooduff: and, exploring the mysteries of ceres-- a dwarf planet that hangs out in the asteroid belt. those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the u.s. justice department has launched an investigation of major airlines and possible collusion to keep fares higher. the department confirmed the probe after the associated press reported it focuses on whether carriers have limited available seats. american airlines, delta,west and united now control

more than 80% of all seats on domestic flights. the united states and cuba will reopen their embassies in each other's countries-- in havana and washington-- later this month for the first time in more than 50 years. president obama made the formal announcement this morning in the white house rose garden. he said both countries are "ready to move forward." >> instead of supporting democracy and opportunity for the cuban people, our efforts to isolate cuba, despite good intentions, increasingly had the opposite effect, cementing the status quo and isolating the united states from our neighbors in this hemisphere. the progress that we mark today is yet another demonstration that we don't have to be imprisoned by the past. when something isn't working, we can and will change. >> woodruff: secretary of state john kerry will travel to cuba for the american embassy's opening on july 20th. secretary kerry is in vienna for the iran nuclear talks. he said today there's been enough progress to go beyond

yesterday's deadline. his iranian counterpart-- mohammad javad zarif-- also talked of progress, but he offered few details. investigators converged on a small south carolina town today after the latest in a series of fires at black churches across the south. "mount zion a.m.e." at greeleyville burned last night. the fire broke out as lightning was moving across the area, and federal investigators said initial indications suggest it was not arson. but, they're not ready to make that official. >> we haven't ruled anything in or anything out at this point. we're gonna let the case dictate and we're gonna investigate it, as the facts will ultimately determine what occurred. we're gonna bring all the assets of the federal government to bear to investigate this fire. >> woodruff: the same church was the target of a fire set by two ku klux klan members in 1995. the presidential fundraising

race has begun in earnest. democrat hillary clinton's campaign said today it took in more than $45 million in the second quarter. that eclipses a record set by president obama in 2011. clinton formally announced her bid in april. the president's residence is making itself more welcoming to some visitors-- and more hostile to others. officials today ended a 40-year ban on photography during public tours of the white house by encouraging people to snap pictures. but "selfie sticks" and video- cameras remain on the "banned" list. meanwhile, outside the executive mansion work crews added sharp metal spikes to the fencing to stop intruders. that follows several security breaches. thousands of people marched in hong kong today, pressing the city's leader to step down, and calling for full democracy. the annual protest marks the city's handover from british to

chinese rule in 1997. last year, pro-democracy forces blocked streets for 79 days, demanding reforms. in indonesia, the death toll passed 140 in the crash of a military transport plane. the plane went down tuesday after taking off from medan city. by today, an excavator began clearing away what's left of the wreckage. >> ( translated ): today we have completed the evacuation of the bodies. we hope that the evacuation of the aircraft's tail can be completed as soon as possible. our constraint is the lack of equipment we need for cutting to quickly move the wreckage. >> woodruff: investigators are now focused on why the plane had far more passengers than first believed. civilians apparently were permitted on board-- for a fee-- in violation of military rules. the wave of migrants crossing the mediterranean has grown more than 80% from a year ago. the united nations refugee agency reported today that

137,000 refugees have landed in europe since january. that far outstrips the 75,000 who made the crossing in the first half of 2014. greece is now the leading destination for the migrants. in economic news, wall street pushed higher, anticipating that the june jobs report-- due tomorrow-- will be stronger than expected. the dow jones industrial average gained nearly 140 points to close near 17,760. the nasdaq rose 26 points and the s&p 500 added 14. u.s. soccer fans celebrated today, after the women's national team reached the world cup final. the americans beat germany 2-0 in last night's semi-final in montreal. they'll play either japan or england in sunday's title match. and the man known as "britain's

schindler" for saving jewish children from the nazis-- has died. in 1939, nicholas winton managed to get more than 650 children on trains out of czechoslovakia, just before world war two broke out. nicholas winton was 106 years old. still to come on the newshour: islamic state militants wage coordinated attacks on troops stationed in egypt's northern sinai, an uncertain future for greece in europe as it heads toward a referendum, u.s. health and human services secretary sylvia burwell on the future of health care, analyzing a historic term for the supreme court, techniques informed by neuroscience to help students learn better, uncovering the mysteries of the dwarf planet ceres and hearing again from the ballet dancer who is now a first-- misty copeland.

islamic state militants fought for hours with egyptian government troops today in the northern sinai peninsula. when it was over, 100 militants and more than 60 soldiers had reportedly been killed. the lengthy battle began after the islamic state forces launched a massive, coordinated assault on army and police positions. for more on this, i spoke with reuters correspondent yara bayoumy in cairo. yara bayoumy, thank you for talking with us. first of all, tell us what happened in the northern sinai. >> well it started out really early this morning when we heard that there were a number of attacks on military checkpoints in north sinai but a number of militants. that happens often, actually, because north sinai is the epicenter of an insurgency here in egypt, but it quickly

escalates, and we saw that it was a very widespread, coordinated assault on a number of military checkpoints in northern sinai by militants and actually, islamic state's egypt's affiliate claimed responsibility for the attacks. we have security forces that did tell us that the intention of the militants was to basically lay siege to one of the towns in the north sinai and this is part of the militants brothers campaign in their attack against security forces and their ultimate game of wanting -- or seeking to topple the cairo government. >> woodruff: i read that this went on for hours and hours. how well equipped how prepared was the egyptian military? >> well, the egyptian military has been fighting this insurgency for over -- or about two years, now, and it has

actually intensified since the military ousted mohamed morsi of the militant brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against him. so the army has been very used to this kind of warfare, but, of course, the egyptian army is a largely conventional army, and the enemy that it's confronting is largely an enemy that uses guerilla warfare tactics in north sinai, so ones that really largely depends on car bombs, i.e.d.s and, of course, we can't forget that these militants operate in areas some of which provide havens for them within the region. so it's a very difficult enemy they're confronting. in terms of how they've managed to do, this was, as i said, a

very sustained -- a very sustained attack or clash that happened today. most of the times, the militants tend to launch attacks and then disappear or melt away into various neighborhoods within northern sinai, but this time it seems like they really did put up a fight. >> woodruff: and just quickly these militants are an affiliate, an offshoot of islamic state? >> right, so they're called sinai province, and they've -- you know, they pledged allegiance to islamic state and they very early on claimed responsibility for these attacks saying that they've launched attacks on 15 military checkpoints, and there were three suicide bombings. the army said that they used car bombs as well. they did have anti-aircraft weaponry as well so they were very well prepared for this assault that they launched

today. >> woodruff: well, we're going to have to leave it there. yara bayoumy, thank you for joining us from cairo. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> wooduff: one day after an historic missed payment to the international monetary fund-- the scene in greece became ever more desperate and chaotic as european creditors rebuffed a late request by the country's leader. special correspondent malcolm brab'ant reports from athens. >> reporter: greece's ceremonial guard symbolizing national pride marched past the prime minister's residence as alexis tsipras blasted his country's creditors, on national t.v. >> ( translated ): i know well that at this hour the warning sirens are loud. they are blackmailing you and calling on you to vote "yes" to all the measures the creditors

are asking for, without any prospect of coming out of this crisis. >> reporter: instead, tsipras urged a show of defiance against austerity measures, in sunday's referendum. >> ( translated ): on the other hand, a "no" vote is not just a slogan, "no" is a decisive step towards a better agreement that we aim to sign immediately after sunday's result. it consists of the people's clear mandate on how they want to live the next day. "no" doesn't mean clashing with europe, but returning to a europe of values. >> reporter: hours earlier, tsipras had sent a letter to those same creditors, accepting bailout terms, but with some conditions. they included: keeping in place a discounted sales tax for greek islands popular with tourists, stretching out defense spending cuts and delaying the phase-out of an income supplement for poor pensioners. but for leaders of the european union, it was too little, too late. the view from german chancellor angela merkel-- reinforced by other european leaders-- was: no deal before the referendum.

>> ( translated ): holding a referendum is a democratic sovereign right of the greek state. it is the legitimate right of greece to do that whenever they want and about whatever they want. but to make it as clear: it is also a democratic sovereign right of the other 18 member states of the euro zone to respond to the greek decision in a proportionate way. >> reporter: meanwhile, for desperate pensioners in athens, it was another long, frustrating day outside the few designated banks that opened their doors to retirees. only those whose last names began with the letters "a" through "i" were served, and even then, they were given the equivalent of just $133. do you have enough money to pay these people? >> i don't know, i don't know. >> reporter: some of those in the line couldn't believe how far they'd fallen. >> ( translated ): i lived abroad for 40 years and i brought back one and a half million dollars back into the country. >> reporter: and, as the day

wore on, tensions built and tempers flared. >> ( translated ): don't push me around or i'll punch you in the face. don't tell me how long you've been here, i've been here since three o'clock this morning! >> reporter: the police were called in to keep order and in the end, these pensioners did get their money, but it's a scene that will doubtless be repeated tomorrow with many people now past all patience. >> ( translated ): whether they give me only 120 euros or not it's the same thing. as far as i am concerned, they're trying to fool us. >> ( translated ): the working class should form a society which solves the problems of the ordinary people and not the profits of the rich. >> reporter: all of which sets the stage for a showdown at the ballot box. prime minister alexis tsipras' call for greeks to vote "no" on sunday will come as no surprise to the country's european partners. but make no mistake, he's also involved in a battle to secure his political future and legacy.

if he loses the referendum he'll no doubt have to resign and call a general election. but according to the latest opinion polls, the no camp is substantially in the lead with 54% support where the yes camp is trailing at p 3%. those numbers may narrow over the next coming days as a result of an early bitter taste of capital controls. judy. >> woodruff: malcolm brab'ant in athens-- you can see more of his reporting on the greek crisis on our website: pbs.org/newshour. in the wake of the supreme court's decision to uphold the healthcare law, the president headed to nashville today to make the case that more states should participate. more than 20 states, mostly led by republicans, have rejected an expansion of medicaid including tennessee. >> and the federal government is there to help and to work with

those states that are ready to get going. i will tell you that the states that have taken full advantage of all the federal options available. they have an even lower uninsured rate and a healthier population and more people signing up for the options that are available than those state how have not taken full advantage of those options. and that's just a fact. >> woodruff: we pick up on what happens now to the healthcare law and the issues surrounding coverage and costs. department of health and human services secretary sylvia burwell is the point person for the administration. secretary burwell, welcome. >> thank you so much for having me. >> woodruff: so the administration just won its big victory in the supreme court just last week, the president already out on the road saying it needs to be improved, the healthcare law. how do you know this is a wise approach when i guess, half the american people say they're still not sure they like the

law? >> well, i think what we want to do is use this as an opportunity to build on the progress that's been made and whether that's the progress that's been made for those in the employer-based market those that no longer can be kept out of insurance because of pre-existing conditions or can keep their child on till 26 or those newly insured, we've made a lot of progress. we want to build on the progress and use this moment as an opportunity to move forward. >> woodruff: i'm sure you know very well republican members of congress, republicans running for president are saying they want to either completely repeal the law or undo big chunks of it. how worried are you that they may do that either in the next year and a half or when there is a new president? >> well, you know, i think the president's been clear about the issue of repeal, and what we're hoping is that the conversation can turn to the substance, and i think that's what the president was reflecting today in terms of most americans want to make sure. they don't want to go back to a

time where you can't get insurance if you have pre-existing conditions or your children up to 26 or in terms of the consumer protections that are in place and whether that's lifetime limits no longer exist or annual limits no longer exist. and i think these folks want to go back to that. i think what we want to do is focus on -- there is been a lot of progress made in terms of quality affordability and access, but we believe there is more that can be made and we would like to work together to do that. >> reporter: let's talk about some of the modifications that have been discussed. even people who support the plan are saying there are parts of it that need changing. the so-called cadillac tax on the more generous plans. the thinking is that this could cause employers to cut back on benefits to pass along the cost. is that something that the administration is willing to take a look at and maybe get rid of? >> so with regard to what we said about the things we want to look at and how we're going to think about each of those things is in terms of how does it impact access, affordability and

quality and what does it do in terms of the deficit and the health of the economy? these are the things that, for all the issues, we're ready to have the conversation in terms of in our budget even, we actually have proposed extending some of the tax credits to a larger group of small businesses. in our budget we've also proposed things that we think will help with increasing costs in the pharmaceutical space as well and that's about making sure we have the ability to negotiate with pharmaceuticals about price for part d and medicare. >> woodruff: and what about the tax? >> there is the issue of what it means in terms of the deficit. that is a very expensive thing. as we think about that, that's one of the things we think is problematic in that space. >> woodruff: as you know, one of the persistent criticisms of the law and health care in general is the costs are so high, the premium costs are so high. we looked at numbers today, in

many places, people are paying 10% 20%, 30% of their gross income for these premiums. how do you reverse this trend which seems to be happening in places all over the country? >> first i think it's important to recognize that in terms of premium growth, that we've seen some of the lowest premium growth in the market in many years. we've seen price increases in the health system are some of the lowest in decades. with regard to what we're seeing now terms of some of the premiums being post-ed and talked about, those are the proposed premiums, and part of the affordable care act created a process of transparency and review. so when insurers are going to charge more than a 10% increase, that needs to be reviewed and there needs to be justification. the affordable care act has put in place things that we believe increase both transparency and downward pressure on the premiums, but i think everyone knows before the affordable affordable care act, we saw the premium

increases existed as well. >> woodruff: let me ask you about the difficulty of getting people to sign up. this is something the administration's worked hard on. today we're told 18 million americans who are eligible who are uninsired insured still -- who are uninsured still have not signed up and decided to buy insurance. many of these are hispanic, young people, young men. how do you persuade them to sign up when they haven't been willing before now? >> 16.4 million americans are insured now and we want to build on the progress. we want to focus as we did last year on meeting the consumer where they are, making sure that we understand what these consumers are making their choices on and that they have the information they need to make good decisions and know that they can find affordable quality care. we know that many people don't realize that there are tax cuts that can help make it

affordable. we also know that many people, differing groups, need to have individual contact and that's why we use navigators and assisters so that people can ask the questions of an individual and have a conversation about what is a very important and personal matter. >> woodruff: and, of course another important part of this is coverage for low-income individuals for the poor medicaid, a number of governors of a number of states have said they are not going to go along with expanded medicaid coverage. there is difficulty. we know the administration is going to be reducing, i guess, from 100% down to 90% of the portion it covers. you still see state leaders saying this is something they can't afford to do. how do you persuade them otherwise? >> first, i think it's important that the 100% goes through 2016. so for many governors where it's important to get the full 100% payment that the federal government is willing to make in terms of expanding and providing

coverage for many people working in their state who can't afford the coverage right now. we believe in terms of the expansion, it's important for two fundamental reasons. one is the individuals. those individuals, as i said, many are working, are people who can get health security and financial security by the expansion. i think the other thing that's important is what this does mean in terms of jobs in the economy and in kentucky where they did expand, they've done studies to make sure they track what's happening, in a study done by deloitte as well as the university of louisville showed in the state of kentucky by the year 2021 they expect 40,000 jobs to be crated because of the expansion and $30 billion to flow into the budgets to have the state of kentucky. >> woodruff: so that's something you will think will happen elsewhere? >> we think it is and we think it's because of the substance in terms of what it means in the states both for individuals and the states' economies and providers in those states. >> woodruff: sylvia burwell,

secretary of the department of health and human services, thank you. >> judy thanks for having me. the king versus burwell case was, of course, just one decision in a dramatic and, some believe, historic supreme court session. jeffrey brown looks at what we learned from-- and about-- the court. >> brown: the court's 2015 session took on a big and broad landscape: free speech, the rights of pregnant workers, housing discrimination, the use of lethal injection, and of course, the fate of obama-care and the definition of marriage itself. we take our own big and broad look with three of the country's top supreme court watchers: joan biskupic, legal affairs editor for reuters and author of biographies of justices scalia and sotomayor, amy howe, editor

of "scotus.blog," and of course our own regular contributor marcia coyle of the national law journal, author of the book, "the roberts court." welcome to you all. joan, you start us off, was there a big theme that you saw emerge from this term? >> well, you know we always try to isolate the courts in one term. the court never sits still and say judge us by this one term so we have to step back. we had the holding of president obama's affordable care act, the right to same-sex marriage declared, and those two gave the court a little bit of liberal identification, but the truth is this is pretty much still a conservative court. they also upheld lethal injection nationwide for death penalty. so i would say that we saw several things that what it comes down to is it depends on the case, depends on anthony kennedy our swing vote justice

at this time he voted with the liberals, and the chief himself we saw him going in both directions but being consistent for himself. >> brown: amy, pick up on that. the chief, the key players? what do you see? >> i think it's interesting because it's certainly true the four liberal justices were in the majority and a lot of the important cases including same-sex marriage including obamacare housing discrimination, but i wouldn't use this as a term in which the law necessarily moved to the left, that these were actually liberal victories as much as they were the liberal staving off efforts by the right to move the law to the right. so same-sex marriage undoubtedly that was a decision that moved the law to the left. until last friday, there was no nationwide right to same-sex marriage, now there is. but when you look at a lot of the other big cases, whether you're talking about obamacare housing discrimination, a case involving whether or not congress can order interest executive branch to put israel on the passport of

u.s. citizens born in jerusalem, these are cases where all that happened was the law stayed the same. >> brown: status quo. yes. >> brown: marsha, let me show a couple of graphics we have to show some of the alliances. the affordable care act. here's the 6-3 decision in that. then we'll put up the gay marriage case, and you can see the shifts. what do you see in terms of the alliances that took place this term? >> i think the alliances are what distinguished a lot of these cases. you saw movement from justices on the right over to the left and they were the reason we with had the victories in the same-sex marriage case, healthcare as well. i think we learned a lot about the court from this particular term. we learned a lot about the differences among the justices on the right and how they interpret the constitution and how they interpret federal laws.

>> brown: you mean the right as a block itself. >> yes. as we've said in the past, these justices on the left and the right are not monolithic blocks at all. we saw in many of the big cases this term that the justices on the right don't march in lock step when it comes to interpreting the constitution. we saw for example, in same-sex marriage that justice kennedy has a broader conception of individual liberty that's protected by the 14th amendment than the colleagues to the right of him, and we saw in the healthcare case that the chief justice interprets statutes differently from justice scalia. >> brown: so we talk about a roberts court, right? but we're saying here that has meanings that change around. >> it does. the chief himself was in the majority less this term than past terms, and that's another reason to remember that you

judge a term by the particular cases that are up there for those nine months, and next year we're going to have so many other different kinds of cases that, frankly, at this point we think might play more to the justices on the right wing. but it's roberts court, we give it that name. in terms of winners and losers, we say it's the kennedy court. but to stick with what marcia said about the justices on the left hanging together, if you're in the dissent and on the right wing, they're going to naturally splinter even further than they already are. there is difference between clarence thomas on the far right and anthony kennedy also on the right much more of a difference than the four justices on the liberal side. >> brown: amy howe, i want to ask the question of rhetoric because it's something we all watch and you're all there in

the court and reading the decisions. there's a lot of strong rhetoric this term, right? the capital execution case, we have justice scalia referring to words by justice breyer as gobbley gook. did this seem unusual? >> it did seem unusual. every term by the end of the term, in the last few years, especially, that's when a lot of the high-profile cases have been coming down and those are the cases which the justices are more likely to be closely divided. they're tired, ready for vacation, they're tired and tired of each other because they're working so hard at the end of june. but this session when you had justices scalia and the same-sex marriage case saying he would rather hide his head in a bag and sign on to an opinion that started the way justice kennedy started his opinion in the same-sex marriage case, that's really kind of remarkable. so i think there is a couple of things going on. i think the conservatives this

term were frustrated that they were on the losing side in some of these cases particularly maybe the obamacare case that they probably expected to win, and it seemed when i looked back at the rhetoric that the rhetoric was particularly strong on the part of justices scalia, thomas and alito, when it was directed at majority opinions for example in the same-sex marriage case, in the obamacare case that were written by conservatives. it's one thing if you're justice scalia and you think justice ginsburg has written an opinion with no document we expect that but another thing with justice kennedy and the chief just dischanging sides in a case he regards as fundamentally important. >> brown: what about marcia looking ahead to the big cases there's always big ones but big ones that could shift our perception again. >> there are. already the court has on the

doctor the next term a major case involving unions and agency shop fees that nonunion members pay in order for the union to represent them during collective bargaining. there is september meant on the court to find they're unconstitutional under the first amendment. the court also has, once again taken affirmative action in higher education,. >> brown: which has colleges worried. >> absolutely, and the second time for this particular case that they're going to be looking at it. the court has a political case involving the meaning of one person, one vote, after all these years in redistricting, and team up we're seeing coming now because there have been a slew of emergency requests or stays in lower court cases involving abortion clinics, voting rights, and we may also see next term a challenge to president obama's executive action on immigration. so it could be, as joan said, an

extremely different term. >> brown: a brief last word, you see some real challenges. >> i think next year we could be saying what a swing to the right it was. i'll mention one thing the chief himself said this time of the year, it's a very good thing we all get a break from each other. (laughter) >> brown: all right, on that -- not that i want to take a break from you -- joannie rochette, amy walter, marcia coyle. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next, neuroscience and education. thousands of teachers around the country are learning about an alternative teaching program that aims to use scientific discoveries about the brain to improve the way children learn in the classroom. special correspondent john tulenko of learning matters reports from philadelphia. >> ohhhh class!

>> ohhhh class! >> when i say class, you stop what you're doing! >> look at the teacher. >> reporter: today is wacky wednesday in jasselle cirino's third grade classroom, which explains the blue wig. >> so i want you to teach your neighbor. >> reporter: but the rest of what you're about to see is what her class looks like every day. >> i want giant gestures! teach! >> reporter: she uses a set of techniques some call whole brain teaching. >> a lot of times in traditional teaching you're just lecturing, and you're talking and talking and what we like to say-- whole brainers-- we like to say, "the more you talk, the more students you lose." and so we use different methods to engage multiple parts of the brain and that way you get 100% engagement. >> reporter: these days, scientists can look further into the brain than ever, pinpointing the neurons and circuits that control how we think and act. all that's sparking a movement

that's changing the way some teachers teach. are there parts of the brain that you're aiming at? >> yes. the hippocampus, the motor cortex, the prefrontal cortex which is the brain's boss so something like "class". classity, class, class, class! >> classity, class, class, class! >> it turns on the prefrontal cortex which makes the brain's decisions. so it says, "hey, pay attention! i'm about to tell you something." so once i have their attention, i teach the material usually through "mirrors". mirrors! this deals with the mirror neurons in your brain. and so what i say they repeat. to learn anything you have to repeat something you have to repeat something that's modeled to you. that's where it starts. >> reporter: a lot of times in your class i saw you gesture and then you asked your students to gesture. >> right. that's for engaging their motor cortex. when you act things out while you're reading, you comprehend more.

and we use "brainees". and so these are gestures that are tied to writing skills. >> reporter: can you give me some examples? >> sure. "for example" is an example. in addition. >> in addition. >> but or however, if then, so more of like a cause and effect, adjective, a noun is a person, place or thing, compare contrast, simile, metaphor, the list goes on and on! yo, class! >> yo, class! >> reporter: i saw you a bunch of times where you would stop, and then you'd say to the group, "teach". >> teach. >> reporter: what's going on there? >> so i've taught them the lesson but now they need to teach that main point to each other. they're getting another repetition of the material but this time, a lot of times in their own words and they're learning how to put things in their own words. you're writing while you're doing it.

you're gesturing so you're remembering it in different parts of the brain. you're not just listening, you're also speaking. you need to be doing all of these things at once in order to engage the whole brain. >> reporter: we wanted to know if science actually backed up any of this. so we brought a video of jasselle's class to daphna shohomy, a neuroscientist at columbia university. >> i buy it. it makes great sense to me. the brain is really in many ways wired for actions. right? it's-- it's really not wired to sit passively and absorb any information. but i think where, you know, where i'd not fully agree is the idea that more activity is always good. more brain activity in more places-- does not equal more learning or a better memory. >> reporter: okay. how can children learn better? >> right, right. ah, yeah, it's the million- dollar question. i think we have some answers. the brain learns when things are surprising and interesting.

>> what is going on here? >> so if i give you a $20 bill, ou'll sort of have a burst of activity in your dopamine neurons. they fire. but if i do that regularly - like every five minutes, i give you $20; your dopamine neurons will stop firing. so what these neurons are doing is they're signaling how unexpected an event was in the world. they're not signaling how good or bad it was, they're signaling how unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad it was. so keeping things a little bit noisy and a little bit different-- is actually really beneficial for learning in many different ways. >> hold your horses. >> reporter: neuroscience says there's something else important going on here. >> when you're learning things just even in life you connect it with a type of feeling and so the main emotion we want you to feel in a whole brain classroom is fun. seriously? >> our brain was evolved to survive.

we need to remember things that were of emotional and social significance. that's probably much more important than remembering any bit of information that was communicated to us within a lecture. >> we're done being blah. it's time to get fuzzy. >> reporter: here are a few other things neuroscientists think the rest of us ought to know about the brain: that stress damages neurons and impairs learning. brain training games claim to be effective, but the jury's still out. but regular physical exercise has been shown to help. staying active keeps the brain developing and delays cognitive decline as we get older. in philadelphia, pennsylvania, i'm john tulenko reporting for the newshour. >> woodruff: as for results, a study on the effect of "whole brain" teaching in one california elementary school, found test scores in math and language arts rose by an average of 11%.

let's look at a space mission that's generating lots of interest and excitement. it's the mission to orbit the dwarf planet, ceres, by the nasa spacecraft, named dawn. it arrived in march, and as the spacecraft has gotten closer in recent weeks, it's getting a better view of the planet, leading to some intriguing questions. our team sat down with dawn's mission director and put together this video. launched dawn from cape cay nav reel in december 2007. in my opinion dawn is exploring two of the last worlds in the inner solar system in more than 60 years of spacex ploar regulation, it's the only spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial destinations.

i'm mark becamen, the chief engineer and mission director for the dawn mission. these are the two most massive objections. there are millions of objections orbiting the sun between mars and jupiter. ceres itself contains a third of the mass of all of those objects. ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt, in fact the largest object between the sun and pluto not visited prior to dawn so almost 600 miles across. this is more than 1 million square miles 38% of the area of the continental united states. ceres and vesta are remnants from our solar system are the formation of planets, the dawn of our solar system. so scientists want to study these bodies because they may

tell us more about the conditions and processes that were active at the times planets were formed. as dawn got closer to ceres, one of the first things we saw were those bright spots. it's impossible not to be mesmerized by these glowing beacons shining out from the unfamiliar lands ahead. the reason these are so bright is that they reflect so much more light than the rest of ceres does, maybe five times or more as much light as the rest of ceres and so, the contrast is just stark. there many possibilities for what the bright spots might be. they might be ice in some form, they also mite be the remnants from ice that was on the surface and sublimated that is the ice

evaporated in space and left behind the materials that had been dissolved in it. so essentially salts that could be very reflective. and though we don't know yet what they, are as we continue to get in closer and get measurements not only with the camera but other sensors on the spacecraft, we'll figure out what they are. what it is about them, whether it's a difference in the chemical compositional nature of this material or something about its structure its makeup, why it reflects so much more light, we don't know. and it makes you want to send a spacecraft there to find out and, by golly that's what we're doing. at ceres we fly the spacecraft in four different or bits in order to study the alien world. we started out in an orbit 8,400 miles high and eventually we will fly it down to only about 230 miles, which is actually a little closer to the

surface of ceres than the international space station is to the surface of earth. the part of it that's so exciting is not only does each orbit answer questions but raises more questions and we can answer them by going lower and getting more detailed data. it's been a remarkable ambitious, interplanetary adventure. >> woodruff: our own jenny marder helped produce that piece and visited nasa for the story. she joins me now. jenny, thank you for being here. really interesting. you heard the mission director saying this is about learning about the origins of our solar system. >> that's right. ceres is known as a protoplanet, and that means scientists believe it was in the process of forming a full-pledged planet, and its formation was suddenly halted like by the tremendous gravity of jupiter. so what you're really seeing is

a planet in the process of forming, so it's a window into the beginning to have the solar system. >> woodruff: as we saw in the description in the pictures, the spacecraft, dawn, is getting closer and closer. we heard him talk about the bright spots. what is the spacecraft seeing now? >> the spacecraft is maneuvering, now, from its third to its second orbit each orbit brings it closer and closer to the surface of ceres. >>ceres. so we're seeing images of craters, valleys a three-mile-high cone that sort of looks like a colonel cano on earth and we're seeing these bright spots which are very interesting. in august, we'll start getting a new crop of photos, these are images coming from dawn at the third orbit. those photos will be three times sharper than the images we're seeing now. in early december when it gets to its closest altitude, those

will be 12 times sharper than what we're seeing now and 850 times sharper than what we were seeing in january when dawn was first trying to capture the images. >> woodruff: so still trying to figure out if there had been or could be life on this dwarf planet? >> that's an interesting question, a question this mission likely won't answer because they're not collecting anything from the surface of the planet, they're just orbiting it. however, ceres does seem to very possibly have the ingredients for life. >> woodruff: because of the bright spots? >> at least on earth, life requires food, water, energy, and the energy could come from radio active nuclear decay from the planet's interior. the planet is very dark which they think indicates carbon-rich compounds on the surface, and the third ingredient is water and looks like it's likely the bright spots are evidence of a

liquid water mantel underneath the surface. >> woodruff: sounds like scientists are very excited about this. >> yeah, what's cool about this is this incredible detective story we're seeing unfolding in real time and as we get closer to the surface of ceres, this planet comes increasingly into focus. >> woodruff: jenny marder thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and you can learn more finally tonight, an encore look at classical ballerina misty copeland, who yesterday became the first african-american female principal dancer in american ballet theater's 75- year history. copeland sat down with us last year to share the story of her rise from poverty to the spotlight. she read from her memoir, "life in motion: an unlikely

ballerina," and recounted the evening she first danced the title role in stravinsky's "firebird." >> prominent members of the african community and trailblazers in the world of dance who seldom see their due are here tonight. i will also dance for those who aren't here who passed the metropolitan opera house but can't imagine what goes on inside. they may be poor like i have been, insecure like i have been, misunderstood like i have been. i will be dancing for them, too. i run on to the stage and feel myself transform. i stand alone. there's a brief second of silence for the audience to erupt in applause once more. clapping so loudly. and so it begins. i'm misty copeland, a soloist with american ballet theater.

i didn't come from a background that would have introduced me to this world in any way. i didn't come from a family with money. i had no knowledge of the ballet world. i'd never heard classical music before, but i think, above all of that, just starting at 13 and only training for four years before i was accepted into american ballet theater american's national ballet company, i think, is the most unlikely of it all. i took a free ballet class at a boys and girls club surrounded by other kids with similar backgrounds to me that were all older and i was selected to come to my teacher's school on full scholarship. it was the first time it was presented to me i had no limit and i could dream. it wasn't something i grew up having. i remember the first time on stage at the metropolitan opera house. i was 19 years old. struggling to find my place in

abt's ballet. i traced the floor with my point shoes and imagined myself on the stage, not as a member of the corps but a principle dancer. it felt right. it felt like a promise. some day, somehow, it was going to happen for me. ♪ ♪ the ballet is not an art form quick to change or adjust and evolve. abt and most classical companies are about following the slow and steady process of proving yourself and moving up through the ranks and, because i was so able and capable of mimicking and doing movements that i'd never done before, i could just see it and imitate it, choreographers wanted to work with me. you just have to be given the opportunity and just give everything to it, dive into it and really commit to these roles which with the opportunities i have been given in all of these parts that i really just took care of all of them because i

have so much respect for this art form. the ballet world, i think, is so similar to theater and drama and you're becoming a character. it's not you out there on the stage. there is no role called misty that i'm playing. we're portraying a character. and even if you're in the ballet, why can't there be a beige swan, a brown and black swan out there? so i understand the importance of me having a voice and exposing people beyond the typical ballet world to this art form. i think it saved my life and i want to introduce it to more people and, you know, coming full circle, that's something i'm trying to do now is to give back to the communities through the boys and girls club, to invite people in my world as it's happening. i think it's really amazing to

have grown men that, you know never have seen a ballet in their life look at me and see a woman that they can relate to. someone who looks like their sister, daughter, mother and to say, well, i'm going to put my child in that because they can see themselves through you. i think it's creating a completely different path of these people that never saw themselves in this world and to watch me, still growing and on my path, i think is so powerful. >> woodruff: misty copeland's huge talent reminding us how far she's come to get where she is today. yesterday named the first african-american woman to be principal dancer for the american ballet theater. on the newshour online: how does an expert in time-use structure her day? we spent an afternoon going through the to-do list of the director of the university of maryland's time-use laboratory. you won't be surprised to learn that she doesn't always practice what she teaches her story is part of our work-life balance series, and it's on our home page. that's at: pbs.org/newshour.

and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we'll kick off a two part series on the grateful dead, starting with drummer mickey hearts desire to replicate the sounds of the universe. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions

and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

. thi nightly business report with tyler mathisen and sue herera. >> back to work. signaling another strong employment rep from the go tomorrow. shifting gears. what the smallest of the big three automakers did that has never been done before. hitting the books. why students taking out loans for the upcoming year just got a bit of good news. just a bit. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for july 1st. good evening. auto showroom are packed but greece isn't budging. the lack of progress on that country's debt seems not to faze investors today. instead they focus on better than expect