From an e-mail from the Science Communicators of North Carolina:
At noon on Friday, January 18, the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in Durham will host a seminar by Josh Rosenau, the Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education. Rosenau, who is in town for the Science blogging conference, will opine on the subject of “Talking to the Media about Evolution and Creationism.” The discussion is sure to be lively.
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Posted in Academia, Creationism, Science Education
If you look at the Program page on the wiki for the Science Blogging Conference, you will see, for the Saturday program, there are 12 excellent sessions, a panel and a talk. Each has a discussion page which you should edit to add your own thoughts, ideas and questions.
One of the sessions I expect to have a big draw, particularly with so many science teachers at the conference, is the session on Teaching Science: using online tools in the science classroom, led by a real pro on the topic – David Warlick. David already has an ongoing discussion of the session on his own blog where you are encouraged to join in the conversation.
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Posted in Blogging, Education, SBC-NC'08, Science Education
You know that I have a soft spot for Project Exploration (just see this for starters), so when Gabrielle Lyon asks me to spread the word about their activities, I am more than happy to oblige. Here is the announcement of their latest action – and you may be interested or know someone to forward this to who can find it useful:
Are you running a science program for middle or high school students this summer in the Midwest? Project Exploration wants to know about it!
Project Exploration is seeking Midwest programs to include in Discover Your Summer, a free resource guide of summer science opportunities for middle and high school students. This guide will reach thousands of students, teachers, and families throughout Chicago and the Midwest in print and online in mid-March, 2008.
THERE IS NO COST TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS GUIDE.
If you are based in the Midwest, (MN, WI, MI, IA, IL, IN, OH, NE, KA, MO, OK), and would like your middle or high school program to be included in Discover Your Summer, please complete the form below [I cannot reprint it here so you will have to ask for it by e-mail] and email it to dys@projectexploration.org or fax the form back to us 347-693-6266.
The deadline for being included in the guide is January 11, 2008. If you have any questions please call 347-693-6266.
Thank you for joining our efforts to increase access to summer science opportunities and to helping all students stay involved with science year-round!
Project Exploration is a nonprofit science education organization dedicated to making science accessible to the public – especially minority youth and girls – through personalized experiences with science and scientists. For more information visit us online at www.projectexploration.org.
Posted in Science Education
Two significant benefits derived from reading and discussing classic scientific papers in undergraduate biology courses are 1) providing students with the realistic perspective that science is an ongoing process (rather than a set of inarguable facts) and 2) deepening the students’ understanding of physiological processes. A classic paper that is useful in both of these regards is by I. E. Lawton and N. B. Schwartz (A circadian rhythm of luteinizing hormone secretion in ovariectomized rats. Am J Physiol 214: 213-217, 1968). The primary objective of the study is to determine whether tonic (pulsatile) secretion of luteinizing hormone (LH) from the pituitary gland exhibits a circadian rhythm. While this hypothesis seems relatively straightforward, its in vivo investigation necessitates an awareness of the multitude of factors, in addition to the circadian clock, that can influence plasma LH levels (and a consideration of how to control for these factors in the experimental design). Furthermore, discussion of the historical context in which the study was conducted (i.e., before the pulsatile nature of LH secretion had been discovered) provides students with the realistic perspective that science is not a set of facts but rather a systematic series of attempts by scientists to understand reality (a perspective that is difficult to convey using a traditional textbook alone). A review of the historical context in which the study was conducted, and a series of discovery learning questions are included to facilitate classroom discussions and to help deepen students’ understanding of the complex nature of pituitary hormone regulation.
Oh yes, I remember the Lawton and Schwartz paper – I have read it a couple of times in my life. And I agree that reading classical papers is a great educational tool. It will be even better in the future when then classical papers will also have years of comments, links, trackbacks and annotations added to them, right there on the paper, for everyone to see how the thinking about the paper changed over time and how the science of the topic progressed since it was first published.
Posted in Science Education
As usual, they made a great website and you can have fun with the “hidden camera” and try to figure out how many little movies did they have to make for the trick to work (i.e., try to “roar” when the people are on different places on the screen):
In support of this upcoming special, National Geographic has asked that I invite you to experience Dino Central Park [http://www.dinocentralpark.com]. Featuring a hidden “webcam” in Central Park, the website allows users to scare the pants off of unsuspecting New Yorkers walking through the park by controlling a virtual Dino hidden in the bushes.
Dino Death Trap, premiering Sunday December 9th at 8:00 pm, digs up brand new species of dinosaurs from a lost age of the early Jurassic. Join National Geographic as they travel to western China, deep in the dry and desolate Junggar Basin, when the graves never-before-seen Dinos are uncovered. Some scientists are calling it “The Pit of Death”, others, “Dinosaur Pompeii”. Envision dinosaur corpses stacked one on top of each other, piled four and five high. A bizarre T. Rex ancestor, a Triceratops ancestor, an ancient Crocodilian, and nearly 40 more different species dating back 160 million years ago are uncovered in front of National Geographic cameras. Follow a team of paleontologists, led by Dr. Jim Clark, of George Washington University, and Dr. Xu Xing, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as they unearth answers to a virtual black hole in dinosaur evolution. Watch as the bones are examined, reconstructed and brought back to life, using high resolution CGI, and slowly probe the mystery of who these dinosaurs were, how they died and what they can tell us about the Lost Age of the Dinosaurs.
Want more Dinosaurs? From DinoCentralPark.com, head over to NGCDinos.com [http://www.ngcdinos.com] where you’ll find 3-D Dino renderings, a fossil hunt game, a Dino mummy timeline, and six video previews of the show. National Geographic even created a “Dino Widget” to help you and your friends determine what kind of Dino they are!
*Disclaimer: Dino Central Park is for entertainment purposes only, and does not feature an actual webcam.
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Posted in Paleontology, Science Education
For winning the second place at the Siemens science competition:
Mentored by N.C. State University professors Donald Bitzer and Anne-Marie Stomp, the students developed a computer model that helps scientists determine which gene sequences to use to produce specific proteins. The research could provide a cost-effective method of commercially producing useful proteins such as insulin.
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Posted in North Carolina, Science Education
Community is no longer a dirty or scary word. Sciam, Seed, in the US, Germany and all over the world. Online communities are becoming understood and a valued commodity. When Google bought YouTube I said the price they payed wasn’t for the technology (they already had Google Video) what they bought was the community. News organizations realize that creating niche communities is a way to stay relevant to advertisers and readers.
And science journalism, which de-facto covers a “boring” subject to lots of people, can only benefit by creating a vibrant community of people who have a passion for the subject. What science journalism needs are people who criticize science because they love science (as opposed to people who criticism because they don’t believe in science). That’s what these communities can offer – and how they will improve science journalism.
Welcome to scienceblogs.com
Posted in Blogging, Open Science, Science Education, Science Reporting, Technology
Every first Friday of the month, there is something fun going on at the NC Museum of Natural Science. This week, Friday December 7th, the theme is Dinosaurs!!!
6 PM Parenthood and Life’s Hazards for Dinosaurs – presentation by Dr. Dale Russell, Senior Curator of Paleontology
I took a class on Dinosaur Osteology with Dale Russell and went to the Carnegie Museum on a December trip as a part of the course some years ago. He took us down to the vaults at dawn before the museum opened and started pulling stuff out of drawers testing our knowledge on the spot. He pulled a little oval-shaped bone from a drawer with no processes or much other distinguishable about it except a hole in the middle of it and asked me what it was – I immediately excitedly shouted “occipital bone of the Diplodocus!” and he was very pleased – he said he knew I would know it because of the pineal opening….
7 PM Natural Horror Picture Show, First Feature – The Lost World (1925)
Now, that’s a classic! Have you not seen it yet?
7:30 PM Thelonius Monk tribute by the University of North Carolina-Greensboro jazz ensemble
Jazz? Enjoy!
8:30 PM Natural Horror Picture Show, Second Feature – Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
I guess this can be somehow construed as having to do with Dinosaurs LOL!
But if you want to skip Mad Max, you can always go downstairs to see the permanent dino exhibit and see Acrocanthosaurus and Willo, the dinosaur with a heart (all permanent exhibits are free). Or you can pay (only $5 after 5pm) and see the traveling exhibit Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries.
Anyone want to go as a group and liveblog the event?
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Posted in Science Education
Sites with videos that are more serious than YouTube are proliferating – I get an e-mail about a new one about every week. This week’s addition is SuTree. By clicking on pets and animals category and then on reptiles and then on care, I found, for instance, this video on the care of Leopard Geckos. It includes some text, as well as user comments (but no responses from the experts or authors of the video). The advice is good, standard pet-shop fare. As my lab-buddy Chris actually did a lot of research with Leopard Geckos, we know a bunch more about the husbandry and other neat tricks with these lizards, but for a pet owner or a teacher, the video is sufficient.
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Posted in Fun, Science Education
…the computers and the Web:
If you are not clear about the difference between the Net (aka Internet), the Web (aka World Wide Web) and the Graph (aka Social Graph), then this post is a must read (via Ed). He explains much more clearly what I had in mind before, e.g., here.
In order to use the Net, the Web and the Graph, you do need some kind of a machine, perhaps a computer, and Greg Laden puts together a dream (or nighthmare) setup for you!
Speaking of dream computers, I could not resist… as you may have seen before, Professor Steve Steve and I got to play with the XO laptop back at Scifoo and, after he nagged me and nagged me and nagged me, I finally succumbed and bought one (which means that another one will go to a poor child somewhere in the developing world – something you should consider doing yourself, but have to think fast as there are only four days left! Update: just saw that it was extended to December 31st…). I am sure that OLPC is inundated with orders and it will take weeks for the laptop to arrive, but once it does, my wife, both of my kids and myself (and Prof. Steve Steve, of course) will give it a test run and I will let you know what we collectively think about it.
Speaking of laptops for kids, why not ask the kids how they would like to see them designed? That is what Amy did (she sometimes comes to my office to get coffee) and you can see the results here (hat-tip: Anton). Pets, Harry Potter trivia, weird games and really weird games….
…North Carolina animals:
Carnivore Preservation Trust has a great website, but most importantly, they now have a brand new IT system that connects it to researchers and veterinarians around the world. The Trust is just minutes away from where I live, but until recently, one could not just show up and go inside (they have tours now, but you have to call in advance, etc.). So, either you knew someone there who can let you in, or you volunteer for a day (or regularly) fixing cages, feeding the animals, etc. I have not been yet, but I will find some time to go soon.
The special exhibit, Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries is now open at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh.
The students at the Asheboro Zoo School are spending three days a week cleaning and taking care of 150 Puerto Rican crested toads that were supposed to be euthanized, but due to the effort by veterinarians and students will probably make it.
This is how animals at the NC Zoo are fed:
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Posted in Animal Behavior, Blogging, Environment, North Carolina, Science Education, Technology
It’s been a while since I came back from Boston, but the big dinosaur story kept me busy all last week so I never managed to find time and energy to write my own recap of the Harvard Conference.
Anna Kushnir, Corie Lok, Evie Brown, Kaitlin Thaney (Part 2 and Part 3) and
Alex Palazzo have written about it much better than I could recall from my own “hot seat”. Elizabeth Cooney of Boston Globe has a write-up as well. Read them all.
So, here is my story, in brief….and pictorial, just like the first part (under the fold).
I would like to use this occasion to thank all the people, anonymous and otherwise, who donated to my challenge on DonorsChoose last month. You donated a total of $1,518 affecting the math and science education of 471 students in schools with high proportions of kids on free lunches.
Unlike some of my SciBlings who garnered lots of small donations, I am like Hillary – getting most of my funding from a few big donors (bundlers) 😉 Anyway, big or small, all your donations are greatly appreciated. Seed Media Group will add matching $15,000 and DonorsChoose will add 10% to each completed challenge. When it all adds up, scienceblogs.com collected more funds for kids education than the Stephen Colbert for President committee even though he is touting it on TV every day! Congratulations and Thanks to all.
Following my obscure rules for prizes, it is now time to announce the winners:
The Clock Around The Blog Around The Clock is on its way to Michelle.
The Blog Around The Clock Mug is on its way to The Ridger.
I am not at liberty to reveal the identity of the third winner (of the ABATC t-shirt) at this time.
Janet, Mike and Ginny, among others, have the scoop on this year’s drive as well as what you can keep doing now that the drive is officially over. My thermometer will remain on the sidebar for some time in the future (likely until the NEXT year’s drive) so you don’t need to stop now.
Thanks!
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Posted in Education, Science Education
My friend Franz, who runs a delightful blog Mikrob(io)log (in Slovenian) alerted me that the team of undergraduates from the University of Ljubljana won the iGEM 2007 at MIT the other day. They did it for the second year in a row (all brand new students, of course). The Ljubljana team won in the Health & Medicine category for their work on HIV-1 virus. One member of the team is Franz’s student. Congratulations to the Slovenian team!
Posted in Medicine, Microorganisms, Science Education
Plano teen wins regional science award, moves on to national competition:
The awards, which recognize exceptional achievement in science, were announced Saturday at the University of Texas at Austin.
Alexander, who won a $3,000 scholarship, was honored for developing a realistic mathematical model detailing how biological clocks work.
“This is publishable, graduate-level work,” said Claus Wilke, an assistant professor of Integrative Biology Section at UT.
He called Alexander’s entry — “Mathematical Modeling of a Eukaryotic Circadian Clock” — a key component in understanding jet lag and insomnia.
“The Circadian clock is a phenomenon seen in almost all living organisms that helps us keep time,” Mr. Wilke said. “Mr. Huang independently went through the literature, figured out what was known and not known about this problem, and identified where he could make a significant contribution.”
Alexander, who began working on his biofeedback project in April, is a member of the Academic Decathlon A-team. He speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and volunteers at the Plano juvenile court.
Cool. I’d like to see it published.
Posted in Clock News, Science Education, Science News
The fifth Science Festival is going on right now in Genoa, Italy. It is a longish affair, from 25th October till 6th November, so if you just happen to be in the area you can still make it. They have hundredr of events, e.g., exhibitions, workshops, performances and shows, all related to science in some way and targeted at a broad audience, from children to senior scientists.
I wish I could attend the session on Rhythms of Life as well as the one on Where is Science Dissemination Going?:
Nowadays, almost 2/3 of press agency releases on scientific topics are based on news given by press offices. The development of public relations activities and the search for media visibility by research institutions are only two of the most important factors that have led to a change in the panorama of scientific public communication, thus influencing its field of research as well.
In the US, the number of people working in public relations is now far greater than the number of journalists; the Internet has now revolutionised both the chronological sequence and the solidity of those “filters” that formerly marked the milestones in the dissemination of results from the researcher to the wider public.
We need to look at these profound changes and at their mutual interactions in order to understand the role played by communication in modern science.
Perhaps there will be some kind of recording of the session, or I may be able to get a summary from someone. I’d like to know how many science bloggers are there in Italy. I know one of my posts was translated into Italian and posted on one of their blogs. So was one of Mo’s posts. How organized are they? Do they meet up in Real Life sometimes? Anyone liveblogging the Science Festival?
There is just a couple of more days left and my challenge is still at 50% (just 6 donors!) so I am panicking. There are several projects that are completely funded and several others that are still far away from the goal, but lots and lots of small donations can make it happen.
Every challenge that reaches its goal gets additional 10% from DonorsChoose. The chances of getting one of the Seed prizes, including the iPod Nano, are very, very good! Chances of getting a prize from me are even better! All the relevant information is here.
Just click here on the thermometer. Please! And this really will be my last call, I promise (I know you are sick of it). And just because tomorrow is the last day and the last time you can get prizes, does not mean you cannot donate later, when your paycheck comes in or some such event that makes you happy and solvent and in a sharing mood.
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Don’t forget to forward me your DonorsChoose receipts so I can send you prizes!
Posted in Education, Science Education
My brain is fried. My flight home was horrifying – the pilot warned us before we even left the gate that the weather is nasty and that he ordered the stewardess to remain seated at least the first 30 minutes of the flight. Did the warning make the experience more or less frightening? I think it made it more so. Yes, the wind played with our airplane as if it was a toy, but knowing that the pilot thought it was nasty made it less comforting that he is confident himself in his abilities to keep us afloat. The scariest was the landing – we were kicked around throughout the descent until the moment of touch-down. The pilot had to fight it by going on with more power than he would normally use, so the touch-down was followed by very sharp breaking. Yuck. I was hoping to take a nap on the flight – yeah, right!
Anyway, while I am recovering (and trying to catch up with work), here are some files and links from the two conferences I presented at over the last week:
Let me just put everything in one place:
ConvergeSouth
The audio is here (missing the interesting Q&A unfortunately (you may have to crank up the volume on your computer to the max to hear it).
I used these links as a basis for the talk, though focusing primarily on PLoS, SciVee.com and Open Access.
CIT blog summary: Scientific publications, now with interactivity
And here is my summary.
ASIS&T:
You can watch a streaming Flash of the session (sans the last part of the Q&A) here.
My PPT can be downloaded here. Note in the recording how quickly I went through the slideshow about blogs and left the PLoS ONE slide up forever talking about the way OA publications will get integrated into other ways of doing, teaching and communicating science (including blogs) online – I certainly earned my pay for PLoS on Tuesday 😉
The Rashomon of blog summaries:
me
me
Janet
Jean-Claude
Christina Pikas
Ken Varnum
Stephanie Willen Brown
Posted in Blogging, Open Science, Personal, PLoS, Science Education, Science Practice
When I went to the Lawrence Hall of Science with Janet, I wore a PLoS T-shirt, of course. The volunteer at the museum, a high school student (you can see her here attaching a harness on Janet), saw my shirt and said “PLoS! Awesome!”
I asked her how she knew about it and why she seemed to like it so much and she told me that they use it in school all the time because it is full of cool information, it is free to read and free to use in presentations and such. Obviously, for her and similar students, the material in scientific papers does not go over their heads, no matter how dry the Scientese language used to write them. And a high school is certainly not going to be able to afford subscriptions to a variety of science journals and magazines. So Open Access is the ideal solution to bring the science to the next generation.
As Paul Chinnock says:
No copyright problems stand in the way of a lecturer basing a lecture or a workshop around a discussion of a published paper.
So, if you are a high-school biology teacher (or student), don’t be afraid to use Open Access papers in the classroom, in journal clubs, to send feedback to authors and editors and, in cases of more interactive journals like PLoS ONE, to post commentary on the articles themselves. There are no stupid questions…
And of course, the same goes for college classes as well.
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Posted in Open Science, Science Education
Perhaps you did not like the shirt. Or do not care for the mug. But if you qualify for one of the prizes by donating to a Scienceblogs challenge on DonorsChoose, you may get a much more appropriate piece – a wall clock:
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Posted in Science Education
Just watching someone give a talk is often not enough to remember it later. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And certainly, seeing is believing. But, this presentation is impossible to forget, even if one would rather not remember it so vividly. Oh, and it was absolutely NSFW!
Obligatory Reading of the Day.
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Posted in History of Science, Humor, Medicine, Science Education
The DonorsChoose fundraiser is in full swing here on Scienceblogs.com. As always, Janet’s blog is the Information Center for the drive, and you can also check Dave’s graphs as well.
As you know, Seed Media Group is matching $15,000 of your donations. The Scienceblogs.com Overlords have also announced some additional prizes!
* 21 “Seed Hearts Threadless” tee shirts
* 21 ScienceBlogs mugs
* 21 subscriptions to Seed magazine
* 9 copies of “The Best American Science Writing 2007”
These prizes will be divided into three thirds and each third will be given on one of the next three weeks for that week’s donors. In the end, all of the donors from the entire month will be eligible for the big prize:
* 1 fresh, new iPod nano
To be eligible for prizes, you need to donate to any of the scienceblogs challenges and turn in your receipts at: scienceblogs@gmail.com.
And if you donate through my challenge (currently 40% funded) and send me yoru receipts, you will be eligible for additional prizes, for instance this t-shirt sporting the beautiful banner of my blog:
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Posted in Education, Science Education
Darn – I’ll be out of town on that date, but you make sure to show up! The October meeting of Science Cafe Raleigh will be on the 23rd at my favourite Irish pub in Raleigh, Tir Na Nog, and the speaker is Dr. Mary Schweitzer, the NCSU researcher who discovered and analyzed soft tissues in fossilized bones of T.rex:
Dinosaurs: Rewriting the Rules of Fossilization
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
6:30-8:30 p.m. with discussion beginning at 7 p.m. followed by Q&A
Location: Tir Na Nog, 218 South Blount St., 833-7795
Speaker: Dr. Mary Schweitzer
Dr. Mary Schweitzer studies dinosaur bones, as many paleontologists do. But recently she has been rewriting the rules of fossilization with her research at the microscopic and molecular levels. Her most fascinating finds have included preserved soft tissues, such as collagen and what appear to be ancient blood vessels, inside a 68-million-year-old T. rex. Come discover how her research has confirmed many connections between dinosaurs and birds and astonished scientists who have long believed that soft tissues would never be found inside fossilized bone.
Mary Schweitzer is the Museum’s Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and an Associate Professor of Paleontology at NC State University. Her discovery of soft tissue inside a Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone was named the 6th most important science story of 2005 by Discover magazine. She received a PhD in Biology and a Secondary Education Teaching Certificate from Montana State University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Communicative Disorders from Utah State University.
Posted in North Carolina, Science Education
The first week of the DonorsChoose fund-drive is up and the donations are coming in rapidly to a variety of school projects via my SciBlings’ challenges.
You can check out all the projects picked by my SciBlings here and my own here.
You can get to my pledge also by clicking on the thermometer on my sidebar (scroll down a little bit) and watch how the mercury in all of our thermometers rise over time. As you can see, 37% of my challenge has already been funded!
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Thank you so much! If you continue being so fast and generous and we reach our goal too soon, I will add more projects to the pledge. Remember, the drive lasts the entire month of October.
And now, let me introduce some special “bribes” for you. I have placed my beautiful banner (with the permission of the artist) on some merchandise on Cafe Press. There are coffee mugs, a wall clock (how appropriate!) and several styles of t-shirts. Send me your receipts from DonorsChoose to be eligible for prizes. One item of your choice will be sent to the following people (who, with their permission, will be announced here on November 1st):
– the reader who donates a single, one-time, largest donation to my challenge.
– the reader who donates the largest total amount over the month of October to my challenge.
– the reader who gives the largest number of times during October to my challenge.
– the reader who donates through the challenges of the largest number of my SciBlings (including mine).
So, if you want a mug, a clock or a t-shirt (or in your e-mail, if you are a winner, you can ask for something else that can be had at Cafe Press, e.g., baseball hat, baby bib, or, gasp, underwear!), pick your preferred strategy and get started. If you have already donated over the past week, you are still eligible. Thank you in advance!
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Posted in Blogging, Education, Science Education
OK, I live here, yet I had to learn from Brian that the AMNH dinosaur exhibit is coming to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh. The exhibit will be open from October 26, 2007 till March 2, 2008 and I will make sure to go and see it while it is in town (and take pictures if they’ll let me and then blog about it). If you come from out of town to see the exhibit, don’t forget to also see the dinos that are on permanent display at the Museum: the Acrocanthosaurus (the only skeleton of its kind displayed anywhere – and it is not a cast either but the real thing) and Thescelosaurus ‘Willo’, the dinosaur with a heart.
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Posted in North Carolina, Paleontology, Science Education
Perhaps you remember June last year when a bunch of us sciencebloggers held a fund drive for science education through DonorsChoose.
Well, we are doing it again this year, more of us, and for a longer period of time – throughout the month of October. As was the case last year, the central information place is Janet’s blog and she has just posted all the details so go and take a look.
You can check out all the projects picked by my SciBlings here and my own here. You can get to my pledge also by clicking on the thermometer on my sidebar (scroll down a little bit) and watch how the mercury in all of our thermometers rise over time. So far, I have picked only a few projects for poor schools in North Carolina. But, if you are fast and we reach our goal too soon, I will add more projects to the pledge, including those in other states.
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Janet explains:
This year, the challenge runs for the entire month of October. A number of ScienceBloggers have already put together challenges. Here’s who’s in so far:
A Blog Around the Clock (challenge here)
Adventures in Ethics and Science (challenge here)
Aetiology (challenge here)
Cognitive Daily (challenge here)
Deep Sea News (challenge here)
Evolgen (challenge here)
Gene Expression (challenge here)
Omni Brain (challenge here)
On Being a Scientist and a Woman (challenge here)
The Questionable Authority (challenge here)
Retrospectacle (challenge here)
The Scientific Activist (challenge here)
Stranger Fruit (challenge here)
Terra Sigillata (challenge here)
Thoughts From Kansas (challenge here)
Thus Spake Zuska (challenge here)
Uncertain Principles (challenge here)
How It Works:
Follow the links above to the DonorsChoose website.
Pick a project from the slate the blogger has selected (or more than one project, if you just can’t choose).
Donate.
(If you’re the loyal reader of multiple participating blogs and you don’t want to play favorites, you can, of course, donate to multiple challenges!)
DonorsChoose will send you a confirmation email. Hold onto it; our benevolent overlords at Seed will be randomly selecting some donors to receive nifty prizes. Details about the prizes and how to get entered will be posted here soon!
Sit back and watch the little donation thermometers inch towards 100 percent, and check the ScienceBlogs leaderboard to see how many students will be impacted by your generosity.
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Posted in Education, Science Education
There have been a couple of recent posts about textbooks lately. Jim Fiore started it all with a look at the textbook business from the perspective of the authors and students, looking primarily at the problem of money. One sentence really hit me, though:
The problem with a large, institutionalized used book market is that it completely cuts out the publisher and the author.
In a larger economy, it is called ‘stock market’. When you buy stocks, most often you will be buying them from a broker, not directly from the company. In other words, you are entering the used-stocks market. You are investing, but not into the company. Yet, the worth of a company is measured by the way its stocks are doing on this second-hand stock market. Only about 6% of the stocks in any given year are sold by the businesses themselves, i.e., the money invested in those stocks go back to the company which can then use it for R&D or for PR or for salaries, etc. Many old, well-established companies have not sold any new stocks in decades. This is as if the performance of, for instance, Ford is measured not in the sales of new cars, but in the re-sale value of the second-hand cars. Ford does not get a penny out of any of those transactions, can do very little to influence that market, yet it is required to do whatever it takes to increase the worth of its stock despite of no money coming in. The stockowners demand it, without ever giving back anything to the company. So, the CEOs slash and cut left and right, trying to get growth without having anything coming back in with which to water the plant. This is much better explained in this book (written by a small business owner and no enemy of capitalism) by Marjorie Kelly.
But, back to the textbooks. PZ Myers looks at the business from the perspective of a teacher:
It makes it difficult for students to sell off their used textbooks, it gives faculty the headache of having to constantly update their assignments, and if you allow your students to use older editions, it means we have to maintain multiple assignments. It’s extraordinarily annoying, and to no good purpose at the university (to great purpose at the publisher, though).
Jim responds:
In the arena of science and engineering there are issues with the fairly narrow audience and resultant low volume, and some difficulties with the used book market. There is, of course, the issue of the publishers. I am going to risk having my snout slapped by biting the hand that feeds me, but hey, I noticed something the other day that has my head spinning anyway.
But David Warlick goes further. If you decide to abandon or downgrade the textbooks for your classes, and start using the Web instead, you cannot just let the students go on a wild hunt. They will come up with stuff of questionable quality. With a textbook, it’s easy – it is a text that is approved by you as a teacher and by your colleagues who wrote it, edited it, and promoted it to institutions and school districts. Students know that the textbook is to be trusted, thus they do not need to learn the skills of critically evaluating it. But if they have to find their own sources, they need to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff:
We teach from textbooks, from reference books, from journals, online databases, and from our own educated expertise. It’s part of our arsenal, as teachers, to help us instill confidence in the sources of that which we are teaching. I’m not saying that textbooks, reference books, and commercial databases are bad, and that we shouldn’t use them. They are enormously valuable. But we’re missing something that’s very important when we rely so exclusively on carefully packaged content and then lament that our students and children rely so readily on Google.
We have to practice what we preach, and we have to practice it out loud!
At the same time that we continue to use our textbooks (or what ever they evolve into), reference works, databases, and our own expertise, we should also bring in, at every opportunity, content and resources that we have found, evaluated, processed, and prepared for teaching and learning, and that we should include conversations about how we found it, evaluated, and processed it. If the are seeing us, every day, asking the questions that are core to being literate today, then perhaps they will not only develop the skills of critical evaluation, but also the habits.
The discussion in the comments is quite contentious there, actually. What do you think?
Posted in Academia, Education, Science Education
A few days ago I wrote about the Zoo School in Asheboro, NC. It is even better than I thought – I got in touch with their lead teacher and she told me that all of their students have laptops in the classroom with wireless access. Their classrooms also have Smartboards and other cool technology. And they are very interested in their students utilizing the Web in a variety of ways, including blogging.
And obviously, some of them already are, as one of the students discovered the post on her own and posted this comment that I want to promote to the front page:
I am a Senior at the North Carolina Zoo School and it is a wonderful experience. You get to work with some of the latest technology, work on projects by yourself, and also work on research papers that will take you inside the Zoo. I would recommend the Zoo School to everyone who lives near one of the four Zoo Schools in the U.S. -Anne Mayberry
I invited the teachers and students to the Science Blogging Conference – Asheboro is barely an hour away from RTP. There, they can schmooze with other students, scientists, science blogging stars, publishers, science teachers, science writers and journalists and participate in all the sessions, including the two education-focused sessions, the first about using the Web in teaching led by David Warlick, a nationally recognized expert on the use of online technologies in teaching, and the other one on ‘Student Blogging: K to PhD’, moderated by a group of undergraduate and graduate students, but we certainly hope that the students from K-12 will also participate in the discussion.
Posted in Blogging, Education, Science Education
A few days ago PZ Myers announced he will have some special guest bloggers on Pharyngula soon. While the first commenters were guessing Big Names, like Dawkins, my comment was: “I am hoping for your students….”. A little later, PZ Myers updated his post to announce that yes, indeed, it will be his Neuroscience students who will be guest-blogging this semester.
And today, they started. They were thrown into a lions’ den, but they are doing great, holding their own against the famously ruthless Pharynguloids who call them ‘kids’ and then slam them anyway in many, many comments (they are all among the ‘most active posts’ on scienceblogs.com today!). Talk about Baptism By Fire (or is it Counter-Baptism?)! It’s nice that PZ Myers is protective of them (and ruthless with the commenters who cross the line), but it seems the students are doing just fine on their own so far.
Anyway, check their first posts and keep an eye on them the next few weeks or so – they are bright young people :
New kid on the block by Bright Lights
An Introduction by Blue Expo
I’ll give this a shot… by Lua Yar
A Very new kid on the block! by Bright Lights
Hey folks by Mark Antimony
Posted in Blogging, Education, Neuroscience, Science Education
In the news today, I received a link to this press release:
Open education resource site HippoCampus launches:
The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education has launched an interactive homework help Web site funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The Monterey-based institution said late Thursday that open education resource site HippoCampus provides comprehensive high school, advanced placement, and college general education course content.
You can now go to the HippoCampus site and test it out and start using it.
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Posted in Education, Open Science, Science Education
Unfortunately, due to the Murphy’s Law of conference dates, I will have to miss this fantastic meeting, because I will at the time be at another fantastic meeting, but if you can come, please do – registration will be open online in a few days.
The conference theme is about bringing scientists and humanities scholars to talk about ways that science is changing human life.
November 8th, 9th, and 10th, the National Humanities Center will host the second ASC conference.
And the program features a Who’s Who list:
Thursday, November 8th
Frans de Waal
Martha Nussbaum
Friday, November 9th
Dan Batson
Margaret Boden
Joseph Carroll
Frans de Waal
Evelyn Fox Keller
David Krakauer
William Lycan
Martha Nussbaum
Steven Pinker
Paul Rabinow
Margery Safir
Robert Sapolsky
Saturday, November 10th
Terrence Deacon
Daniel Dennett
Alex Rosenberg
Mark Turner
Of those, I have seen Sapolsky, Fox Keller and Deacon speak before, and I know Alex Rosenberg, and for each one of them alone, it is worth showing up!
Comments Off on A kick-ass Conference: Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity
Posted in Academia, Animal Behavior, Cognition, Education, Evolution, North Carolina, Philosophy, Psychology, Science Education, Society
If you were here last June, you’ll remember the scienceblogs.com-wide action to fund science and math teaching projects in underfunded schools through DonorsChoose.
This year, we’ll do it again. There is twice as much of us, and we will also challenge bloggers outside of scienceblogs.com to join us in this. And we’ll try to do even more than that, but you will have to wait a few days and keep monitoring Janet’s blog and other blogs for more information. Stay tuned.
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Posted in Education, Science Education
I rarely wish to be 14 again, but I certainly did when I read this news today, that N.C. Zoo and the Asheboro City Schools have just started something called AHS Zoo School. As Russ Williams explains:
“Students have unprecedented access to a 1500-acre, world-class facility ideal for environmental and biological exploration. Beyond routine science, the zoo offers relevant experiences in zoology, horticulture, marketing, retail, hospitality and art as well as wildlife and plant conservation and research. The AHS program is only the fourth zoo school in the country with similar schools located in Nebraska, Ohio, and Minnesota. The first 100 AHS students officially began classes August 27th.”
“Based on a model from Lincoln, Nebraska, students in the AHS Zoo School attend one morning class at the AHS campus in Asheboro then travel to classrooms and lab facilities at the N.C. Zoo for the remainder of their classes in science, English, mathematics and social studies. Students become actively involved in learning through problem solving and using the zoo as their classroom.”
“AHS Zoo School teachers collaborate with N.C. Zoo educators and other zoo staff to allow students to experience science on a daily basis.”
“The AHS Zoo School is a science-focused program for…students in grades 10, 11 and 12 to experience high school in a completely different way.”
Now how cool is that!?
Posted in Education, North Carolina, Science Education
Kate Seip of The Anterior Commissure and two of her colleagues have announced the formation of Science Communication Consortium:
There’s been a good deal of recent discussion, both face-to-face amongst colleagues and friends and within the blogosphere itself, on how scientists can effectively communicate their work to mass media and journalists, science writers and educators, and politicians and policymakers. To address these issues, we have partnered with New York Academy of Sciences to develop an inter-institutional Science Communication Consortium in the greater NYC region.
This newly-minted Consortium will consist of lecture series and discussion forums on the theory and application of effective science communication to a variety of audiences and across multiple purposes. With this series, we hope to provide scientists with tools and resources for effective communication with a variety of audiences, and to promote scientific literacy and the public understanding of science in the non-scientific public.
As they write on their new blog:
We three graduate students in the sciences have teamed up with the esteemed New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) to form the first inter-institutional lecture series on science communication in the greater NYC area.
Now more than ever, scientists need to effectively communicate their work to mass media and journalists, science writers and educators, and politicians and policymakers. This lecture series is timely and extremely vital to promoting scientific literacy and the public understanding of science.
We intend to make this lecture series accessible to both scientists and non-scientists alike. Lectures will include how to effectively facilitate appropriate scientific dialogue with non-scientific audiences; exploring the roles of mass media, journalists, and science writers in science communication; and understanding how scientific communication can inform scientific policymaking and controversial decision-making processes.
Lectures will be held on a rotating basis at participating institutions, including Columbia University, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical, The Rockefeller University, New York University, Rutgers/UMDNJ, and Stevens Institute of Technology.
We intend for this blog to act as a forum for stimulating discussion on topics related to science communication, a space to announce upcoming lectures, and a suggestion board to post issues that you’d like to see incorporated or addressed in the series itself.
So, if you are in the NYC area and can help in some way – blog about it, coax people to give lectures, help with hosting, etc. – contact Kate et al. and make it happen.
Posted in Framing Science, Science Education
A serious one, for advanced courses. I held it in my hands the other day (Jonathan Eisen brought a copy to Scifoo to show). I hope to get one soon. Check it out at its homepage and order yourself a copy. It looks great!
Posted in Evolution, Science Education
I have linked to and posted pictures of Eva Vertes from SciFoo before and you may ask: “Who is she? Why was she invited there?” The Wikipedia page I linked to earlier is a short stub and full of errors. So, to make it clear, see this page as well as comments on this talk she gave two years ago when she was 17:
Posted in Basic Biology, Medicine, Neuroscience, Science Education, Science Practice
How do air-conditioners and refrigerators work? Scientific explanations for this can be cranky or patient. You choose.
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Posted in Fun, Science Education
Last night, Professor Steve Steve took off work a little earlier and went to Oakland to see the offices of the National Center for Science Education, then went to Berkeley for dinner with the NCSE staff and fans at Eugenie Scott’s house. Lots of pictures under the fold:
Posted in Creationism, Fun, Science Education
The Science Idol: The Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest by the Union of Concerned Scientists is over and the winner has been announced. Read the interview with the winner, Jesse Springer.
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Posted in Fun, Science Education
Tara of Aetiology, after reviewing Danica McKellar’s book “Math Doesn’t Suck”, posted an exclusive blog interview with Danica, which you can (and should) read here.
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Posted in Books, Science Education, Society
SPARC just announced the Mind Mashup: A Video Contest:
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today announced the launch of the first annual SPARC Discovery Awards, a contest to promote the open exchange of information. Mind Mashup, the theme of the 2007 contest, calls on entrants to illustrate in a short video the importance of sharing ideas and information of all kinds. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site or software application that combines content from more than one source.
Consistent with SPARC’s mission as an international alliance of academic and research libraries promoting the benefits of information sharing, the contest encourages new voices to join the public discussion of information policy in the Internet age. Designed for adoption as a college or high school class assignment, the SPARC Discovery Awards are open to anyone over the age of 15.
Contestants are asked to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively show the benefits of bringing down barriers to the open exchange of information. Submissions will be judged by a panel that includes:
• Aaron Delwiche, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas
• José-Marie Griffiths, Professor & Dean at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Rick Johnson, communications consultant and founding director of SPARC
• Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC
• Karen Rustad, president of Free Culture 5C and a senior at Scripps College majoring in media studies
• Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
• Peter Wintonick, award-winning documentary filmmaker and principal of Necessary Illusions Productions Inc.
“I’m very proud to be judging this contest,” said Karen Rustad. “When it comes to debates over Internet information policy, students are usually subjects for study or an object for concern. I can’t wait to see what my contemporaries have to say about mashup culture and open access to information once they’re given the mike — or, rather, the camera.”
The contest takes as its inspiration a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
Submissions must be received by December 2, 2007. Winners – including a first-place winner and two runners up – will be announced in January 2008. The winner will receive $1,000 and a “Sparky Award.” The runners up will each receive $500. Winning entries will be publicly screened at the American Library Association Midwinter Conference in January 2008 in Philadelphia and will be prominently featured in SPARC’s international advocacy and campus education activities.
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Posted in Blogging, Education, Open Science, Science Education
Duke University, after years of being behind the curve, is now striving mightily to establish itself as a leader in online science communication. As a recent news article shows, the school is activelly encouraging its students to keep blogs and make podcasts.
I have already mentioned Sarah Wallace and her blog about genomics research in Chernobyl.
Nicholas Experience is a blogging/podcasting group working on environmental science (OK, Sheril is their most famous blogger, but she did it herself, without being prompted by the Nicholas Institute).
At the Howard Hughes Precollege Program Summer 2007, 15 local high school students blog about doing research in the life sciences at Duke University.
Finally, 30 undergrads are writing fascinating stuff about their research experiences, each on a separate blog, with the central place (with a complete blogroll on the right sidebar that I urge you to explore) being the Student Research at Duke blog.
Much of that activity can be traced back to an old blogger meetup and, now that Anton Zuiker is starting to work on their health/science/medicine communications this week, Duke really has a chance to become cutting edge.
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Posted in Blogging, North Carolina, Open Science, Science Education, Science Reporting
Mindy discovered a cool series of videos on YouTube, done by a physics teacher.
The first one is called The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See:
Then, to respond to questions and comments, he added Patching Holes #1, Patching Holes #2 and Patching Holes #3, also well worth watching. This is certainly no Al Gore!
Posted in Earth, Framing Science, Science Education
I can’t stay away (a charming spell?) from the series that Anne-Marie is churning out at a supernatural rate (what kind of magic?). Here are the latest three installments, totally enchanting:
Conservation Biology
The Botany of Wands
Kin selection
Posted in Basic Biology, Books, Science Education
Russ Williams (Director of NC Zoo Society) reports on his blog that the North Carolina Zoo is experiencing record attendance.
He also notes that San Francisco Zoo is enjoying record numbers as well.
Why do you think zoos are so popular lately?
Finally, he mentions that in the Oakland Zoo, one can bring in the appropriate food and go into the exhibit to feed the elephants.
Sounds like fun! I did not even know there was a zoo in Oakland. I’ll have to add it to my growing list of things to see while I am in the area.
Posted in Science Education
Greeting the visitors.
Yesterday, a few of my friends from PLoS and I went to the Exploratiorium to see the Iron Science Teacher show. Lots of pictures (and a little bit of running commentary) under the fold:
Posted in Education, Fun, Science Education
Four excellent, thought-provoking articles all in some way related to the idea of Open Science. One by Bill Hooker:
Competition in science: too much of a good thing
and three by Janet Stemwedel:
Clarity and obfuscation in scientific papers
Does thinking like a scientist lead to bad science writing?
OpenWetWare
Posted in Academia, Open Science, Science Education, Science Practice
OK, so I’ve been here for about a week now. It’s been so far an exciting and overwhelming experience – there is so much to learn! And I am impatient with myself and want to get in the groove right now. I need to learn to slow down a little…
Anyway, I did manage to drop in here at the blog a couple of times and report on meetups with some local bloggers, but here is a little bit more about the week so far…
Posted in Fun, Open Science, Personal, PLoS, Science Education
I had a great pleasure recently to be able to interview Senator – and now Democratic Presidential candidate – John Edwards for my blog. The interview was conducted by e-mail last week.
As I am at work and unable to moderate comments, the comment section is closed on this post, but will be open on the previous post (here) where I hope you will remain civil and stay on topic. You are also welcome to comment on this interview at several other places (e.g,. DailyKos, MyDD, TPMCafe, Science And Politics, Liberal Coalition, the Edwards campaign blog as well as, hopefully, your own blogs).
I cannot answer any additional questions for Senator Edwards, of course, but there are likely to be other opportunities in the future where your questions can be answered so feel free to post them in the comments thread on the other post and I’ll make sure he gets them. The interview is under the fold:
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Posted in Earth, Education, Food, Medicine, Politics, Religion, Reproductive Health, Science Education, Science Practice, Society
What happens when you invite a bunch of high school students and a bunch of college students to do research over the summer in a bunch of biology labs AND you help them blog about the experience? You get amazing stories and great insights collected at Howard Hughes Precollege Program Summer 2007 and Student Research at Duke. Spend some time on both sites and look around. It is really amazing and eye-opening.
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Posted in Blogging, Science Education
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