Science Education
gregladen | November 9, 2009In lecturing about behavioral biology (in any of a number of classes) it has been hard for me to avoid the lion story and the languar story. Both involve infanticide and selfish strategies by individuals. In both cases, females do things that are unexpected from the middle class heternormative Caucasoidowestern perspective. Babies die. For all these reasons, the stories wake up the students, get the students interested, and stuff gets learned. The key pedagogy here is this: If you are presented with a counter intuitive situation (and you are alert enough to recognized its…
eklemetti | November 6, 2009
It seems like I've been stepping on a lot of people's toes lately, so in an effort to foster more camaraderie and less belligerence between the "old media" (this is not derogatory, but rather refers to anything pre-internet news source or classic journalistic source) and "new media" (this includes internet-era news sources, bloggers and the like), I'd like to put down my thoughts on the state of science journalism on the internet today.
I do not think all media is bad at science. There are a multitude of great science sources out there that handle the issues quite well, mostly associated…
clock | November 5, 2009Boom 'n' Doom: Volcanoes, North Carolina and North Carolina Volcanoes
November 18th; Acro Café on the fourth floor of the Museum of Natural Sciences
8:30-10:00 am with discussion beginning at 9:00 followed by Q&A
Volcanic activity half a world away can affect us in our own state. When Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted over about 4 days in 1815, the resulting debris cloud led to the "Year Without Summer" in 1816, which was marked by massive crop failures from Europe to North…
clock | November 4, 2009Dog Genome: Teaching Scientists New Tricks
November 17th; 6:30-8:30 pm with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A
The Irregardless Café, 901 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh 919.833.8898
This year, roughly 66,000 people will be diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while another 22,000 will be diagnosed with cancers of the brain. In parallel, our pet dogs also suffer from a range of similar spontaneous cancers. For thousands of years, humans and dogs have shared a unique bond--breathing the same air, drinking the same water, and living in the same environment. During the 21st century…
sciencewoman | October 30, 2009This week Minnow and I are pleased to honor the first request from a DonorsChoose Challenge giver. (There's still time, donate enough to complete a project, email me the receipt and you too can request a story.) I'll admit to being pretty excited when this request came it, because it was perfectly seasonal...and we already had the book in our queue. Today's featured book is Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden, by George Levenson and exquisitely photographed by Shmuel Thaler.
But before we can get to the book, let's tell you about our trip to the pumpkin farm, where we learned some factoids…
sciencewoman | October 29, 2009There's a few days left in our October DonorsChoose challenge, and even after that there are many more great projects out there waiting for our help.
A few weeks ago, wonderful educator-science-historian-cultural-studies-expert-mother-blogger Leslie Madden-Brooks responded to a plea to help fund some projects, and I was deeply moved by what she wrote to the classroom, so I wanted to share it with you...
I gave to this project because I had such a tough time learning math, and I wish I had been able to develop this kind of mathematical and critical thinking through reading interesting authors…
skookumchick | October 26, 2009Folks, we are heading into the home stretch for Donors Choose, and you've helped 1084 kids get access to books they wouldn't have had without your help. That's great. But we can do better.
So.... 24 Sciencewomen blog readers have already donated $1517 to needy projects, and if you can help us make it a little farther, I will donate 10% of our final tally on top.
The criteria:
1) That we make it to $1750 before the challenge closes on Oct 31; OR (that's right, OR!)
2) That 10 more people make donations, no matter how small.
So either a generous person can give ~$230 on their own, or a…
clock | October 23, 2009From the American Museum of Natural History, if you are in New York City at the right time:
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ANNOUNCES
TRAVELING THE SILK ROAD: ANCIENT PATHWAY TO THE MODERN WORLD
November 14, 2009 - August 15, 2010
WHAT
Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World
brings to life one of the greatest trading routes in human history,
showcasing the goods, cultures, and technologies from four representative
cities: Xi'an, China's Tang Dynasty Capital; Turfan, a verdant oasis;
Samarkand, home of prosperous merchants, and ancient Baghdad, a hub of
commerce and…
sciencewoman | October 23, 2009This week, Minnow and I present "Where do Insects Live?" in the Science Emergent Readers Series, from which we've previously featured a book on oceans.
(Yes, I am using bugs in the colloquial sense and not just to refer to some Hemiptera.There's plenty of time for Minnow to learn those details later. Who knows, she may go on to a career in entomology.)
It's autumn in Mystery State and bugs are getting harder to find, but Minnow and I did see various bugs under a flower pot, ants on our sidewalk, and a spider on her swing set. On a walk with SciGram, Minnow also found a moth warming up on a…
sciencewoman | October 23, 2009Don't worry, SciWo's storytime is coming later today. But first a word about our on-going DonorsChoose challenge. Along with 22 others, DonorsChoose has already given $50 to our challenge, and now they want to give more...based on how much we raise by Sunday. Here's the scoop:
Next week, we will distribute $200,000, the rest of HP's contribution, to all Social Media Challenge Giving Pages. But this time, your share will be calculated on a pro-rata basis based on the amount you've raised by Sunday. What does that mean? Now is the time to motivate your readers, followers, friends, fam and…
clock | October 21, 2009You heard of HP, didn't you? It's a person (or company, perhaps Hewlett Packard for all I know) who donated to every single challenge on Social Media Challenge Giving Pages on DonorsChoose!
And now I hear that HP wants to give even more - but there is a method to that madness: you have to donate first! More anyone raises by Sunday, more that person's Challenge gets from HP:
HP has been tracking the competition closely and has already made a $50 contribution to your page, as a result of all of your hard work. The good news? HP wants to make yet another contribution to your Giving Page. The…
gregladen | October 19, 2009NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott has joined the Board of Advisors for Scientific American.
Dr. Eugenie C. Scott has joined Scientific American's revamped and expanded Board of Advisers. In her new role, Dr. Scott will have a hand in shaping the course of the magazine, offering advice and feedback on upcoming editorial plans, manuscripts, article proposals, and more.
In her letter to Dr. Scott, acting editor in chief Mariette DiChristina noted, "We at Scientific American admire your work, and would greatly value having the benefit of your opinions."
Other members of this select…
gregladen | October 16, 2009The following is an abstract from an article by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education called “WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE "TEACH THE CONTROVERSY" SLOGAN?” available here.
a repost
Teachers are often exhorted by creationists to "teach the controversy." Although such encouragement sounds on the surface like a proposal for critical thinking instruction, the history of the creationist movement in North America belies this claim. Rather than teach students to analyze and evaluate actual scientific controversies, the intent of "teach the controversy" exhortations is to have…
sciencewoman | October 16, 2009This week on SciWo's Storytime, we're reading about Lakes and Ponds in a book by Cassie Mayer, from the same series as an earlier episode about oceans. While the text of this series of books is simple, I'm finding that they are a great way to engage Minnow in a conversation about the topic. Listen to how excited she gets about lakes and boats...
I wanted to take Minnow to a local lake for "No Child Left Inside Day" earlier this Earth Science Week, but instead we played with the neighborhood kids and dug in the dirt, which was pretty fun too. In any case, Minnow and I have a long tradition of…
clock | October 15, 2009DARWIN ON FACEBOOK: HOW CULTURE TRANSFORMS HUMAN EVOLUTION
AFTER HOURS EVENT FEATURING ANTHROPOLOGIST PETER RICHERSON
WHAT SciCafe presents Darwin on Facebook: How Culture Transforms Human Evolution, featuring Anthropologist Peter Richerson.
Help celebrate the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species with a night about Darwin, culture, and social media. Come hear anthropologist Peter Richerson of UC Davis explain how social networking sites like Facebook may affect the course of human evolution as he launches a discussion about how our success as a species owes much to our…
clock | October 15, 2009NCSU AND UNC-CHAPEL HILL PROFESSOR TROY NAGLE TO DISCUSS THE JOINT DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING AT OCTOBER RESEARCH DIRECTORS MEETING
The Research Triangle Park, N.C. - The Triangle Area Research Directors Council (TARDC) has announced that Dr. Troy Nagle, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at NCSU and UNC-Chapel Hill, will be the keynote speaker at next week's TARDC event, to be held at The Research Triangle Park's Headquarters building. Dr. Nagle will speak on the joint departments of biomedical engineering at NCSU and UNC-Chapel Hill and bridging academic and research cultures.
Dr…
gregladen | October 15, 2009Roughly half of the people in the United States reject one or more fundamental tenets of science (most commonly evolution), while a larger percent, perhaps more than 80 percent depending on how we measure, would fail a basic science test. A strong majority of those American citizens who would claim to have strong feelings about one or more science policy issues such as climate change, stem cell research, or nuclear power either know very little about the relevant science or are so badly informed regarding the science that their knowledge is not merely insufficient, but is actually opposite…
sporte | October 14, 2009If you have a little time, the Dolan DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor will be presenting some really interesting workshops on neuroscience and genetics.
The dates are:
Nov. 5, 2009: Inside Cancer - workshop on teaching cancer; Raritan
Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ
Nov. 6, 2009: Genes To Cognition - workshop on teaching neuroscience;
Raritan Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ
Nov. 21, 2009: Inside Cancer - workshop on teaching cancer; Great Bay
Community College, Portsmouth, NH
Nov. 20, 2009: Genes To Cognition - workshop on teaching neuroscience;
Great Bay…
gregladen | October 12, 2009 17th century Arabic anatomy drawing, from the Advances of Islamic Sciences web site. In some Islamic sects, drawing living things is not allowed. As a very practical matter, this excludes students from taking part in certain activities in science classrooms.
During the Bell Museum Slapdown panel last week, Myers brought up differences between countries in public attitudes towards education. Mooney and Nisbet brought up the difficulty of making fundamental changes via “Popular Science” approaches, which I take to include public, popular culture as well as standard education (which is,…