Education
clock | May 11, 2009
Petnica Science Center has been doing science summer camps for high school graduates and undergrads for 25 years and many of its alumni went on to have good careers in science both in Serbia and abroad:
Petnica Science Center is the biggest and, probably, the oldest independent nonprofit organization for extracurricular science education in SE Europe. Since 1982, Petnica has organized more than 2,500 programs (seminars, workshops, research camps...) for nearly 50,000 students and science teachers in 15 disciplines of science, technology and humanities. Majority of programs are designed for…
jstemwedel | May 10, 2009Dr. Isis asked me to write a letter for her most excellent Letters to Our Daughters project, which she describes as follows:
When I was a graduate student, I took a physiology class in which I was given the assignment to recreate my scientific family tree. When I did, I found that my family tree is composed some brilliant scientists. But, my family tree is also composed entirely of men, plus me. The same is true of the tree from my postdoc. I have scientific fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, but no aunts, grandmothers, or mothers. As I considered my career path in science, I…
pontiff | May 7, 2009After watching Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk* it occurred to me to go back and look at my own scientific papers and try to assess them for how creative they were. Some things you should just never do, I guess, but it did lead me to an interesting question.
* The first 2/3 of the talk is excellent, ending not as great. I'm heartily in support of his cause, but it felt to me like he was implying that this was the one and only problem with the education system, which I find hard to swallow.
Looking at the list of my papers, I'm struck by many things. First of all I'm amazed by how tightly I've…
pharyngula | April 30, 2009Melanie Phillips is irate. Why? Because Ken Miller says Intelligent Design is nothing but creationism relabeled. Miller is right, Phillips is once again raving in ignorance.
In an item on the growing popularity of Intelligent Design, John Humphrys interviewed Professor Ken Miller of Brown University in the US who spoke on the subject last evening at the Faraday Institute, Cambridge. Humphrys suggested that Intelligent Design might be considered a kind of middle ground between Darwinism and Creationism. Miller agreed but went further, saying that Intelligent Design was
nothing more than an…
dmunger | April 29, 2009When you selected the college or university you planned to attend, how did you do it? Did you read narratives offered by college guides? Did you compare relevant statistics such as the student/teacher ratio and percent of students who went on to graduate school? Did you listen to the advice of older friends who had attended the school? Or did you visit the school in person? And which of these factors had the most impact on your decision?
For many students, the campus visit is the deal-maker (or breaker). Here at Davidson I've met many students who said they had been undecided, but when they…
terrasig | April 29, 2009Word around town and just tweeted by local hero, Ayse, is that the great Ernie Barnes passed away yesterday at the age of 70.
From the biography at Mr Barnes' website:
Born Ernest Barnes, Jr. on July 15, 1938 to Ernest Sr. and Fannie Mae Geer Barnes during the Jim Crow era in Durham, North Carolina, his mother worked as a domestic for a prominent attorney. As a child, young Ernest would accompany her to work and was allowed to peruse the extensive collection of art books. One day in junior high school, a teacher found the self-admitted fat, introverted young Barnes drawing in a notebook while…
pharyngula | April 26, 2009The NCSE is an excellent organization, and I've frequently urged people at my talks to join it. However, it's also a limited organization, and this post by Richard Hoppe at the Panda's Thumb exposes their flaws. It's blind. It's locked in to one strategy. It's response to people who try to branch out in new directions is to discourage them, often in a rather patronizing way. This is not a good approach to take when we've been deadlocked for years and they offer no prospects for future victory.
I've been making the argument for some time that the NCSE is our defensive line, and they are great…
sciencewoman | April 25, 2009ScienceGrandma pointed me to this recent article in the Wall Street Journal. It's titled "So You Want to Be a Professor?" but I think it should have been called "The Perils of a Ph.D."
The article begins by citing some examples of graduate schools that are reducing admissions of PhD applicants for next year, in what may be a cost-cutting move. As we all know, graduate assistantships cost $25K or more per year, even if the grad student doesn't see much of it and returns those costs to the university by teaching labs, grading papers, and doing other grunt work. Apparently, some universities…
laelaps | April 17, 2009One of the most maddening aspects of my college education was that despite the dull and useless nature of many of my required courses I had no choice but to take them. You just can't buck tradition, everyone said, even if no one quite remembers why the tradition was started in the first place. Charles Darwin felt much the same during his time at the University of Edinburgh, and he too tried to only attend lectures that were of interest to him. Charles' father did not care for his son's lackadaisical attitude towards school, though, and in an 1826 letter Charles' sister Susan Elizabeth relayed…
clock | April 16, 2009Climate Change Makes Migrations Longer For Birds:
A team of scientists, led by Durham University, have published findings that show that the marathon flights undertaken by birds to spring breeding grounds in Europe, are going to turn into even more epic journeys; the length of some migrations could increase by as much as 250 miles.
Diet Secrets Of Elephant Family Named 'The Royals':
Two weeks after the rains begin, an elephant family named "the Royals" usually switches to a grass diet to bulk up for pregnancy and birth. But when they wandered off their African reserve one rainy season, cattle…
terrasig | April 15, 2009Serendipity. Me and Tancredo, of all people.
Start here: The press has been buzzing today about former Colorado congressman and US presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, having to cut a speech short yesterday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill due to protesters on his stance toward illegal/unauthorized immigration to the US. With regard to state universities, Tancredo is opposed to granting in-state college tuition to children whose parents came to the US outside of legal immigration procedures.
I am not a fan of Tancredo or his policies. The time has come in this country…
ddobbs | April 15, 2009"You couldn't make this up: Cameras are being turned on the people paid to watch CCTV streams, to note which bits of surveillance footage they didn't see." via BoingBoing
The beauty of sand, close up -- a photo gallery at Discover.
Robots as recruitment to science. "If you stick a robot--I don't care if you're talking about grade school kids or high school students--if you put a robot in the middle of the room, there is something captivating about the technology." from Making Robots Personal - an interview with Tandy Trower of Microsoft Robotics. I find this particularly relevant as my 7-y.…
clock | April 13, 2009Periodic Tables and the Museum of Life and Science Present:
April 14, 2009 | 7:00 P.M.
Waves of Ocean Literacy
Speaker: Cynthia Cudaback, NC State University
If the Earth is a body, the ocean is its blood, circulating over most of the surface, moderating temperature and sustaining life. Cynthia Cudaback provides college and high school students with the tools they need to be informed stewards of the ocean, and its importance to the long-term sustainability of our planet. Her talk will focus on the success of marine education efforts, and opportunities for improvement.
Join us tomorrow night…
dmunger | April 10, 2009It's test-taking season for high-school juniors in the U.S. Most students take the SAT test, which claims to assess mathematical, verbal, and writing ability to help the college/university admissions process. The pressure to succeed on this and other tests has led to the creation of a whole cottage industry, selling books, software, classes, and even summer camps devoted to getting better scores on the tests. Some parents spend thousands of dollars preparing their children to take the test, in addition to the hundreds they might spend to take and retake the test, searching for the elusive…
drorzel | April 9, 2009
Why was Jesus crucified? - By Larry Hurtado - Slate Magazine
"A central statement in traditional Christian creeds is that Jesus was crucified "under Pontius Pilate." But the majority of Christians have only the vaguest sense what the phrase represents, and most non-Christians probably can't imagine why it's such an integral part of Christian faith. "
(tags: culture religion humanities history slate)
Color + Design Blog / All 120 Crayon Names, Color Codes and Fun Facts by COLOURlovers
"According to a Yale University study, the scent of Crayola crayons is among the 20 most recognizable to…
worldsfair | April 8, 2009This is nicely done.
Andre was one of our Terry talk speakers last November and he did a great job.
In essence, he described current practices in the classroom setting, and tried to make a case that education could be greatly enhanced when certain technologies are brought into the learning process (particularly as social networking and gadgets continue to progress).
Anyway, he describes his talk as:
I would like to talk about the potential for technology to change the way that education works, specifically at the University level. This will take off where Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk…
pharyngula | April 6, 2009Full-Time, One-Year Faculty Position in Biology
University of Minnesota, Morris
The University of Minnesota, Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education, to fill a full-time, one-year position in biology beginning August 17, 2009. Responsibilities include: teaching undergraduate biology courses including an introductory level cell biology course for majors (with lab), an upper-level microbiology course for majors (with lab), and contributing to other courses that support the biology curriculum. Excellent fringe benefits and a collegial atmosphere accompany…
dgmacarthur | April 3, 2009OK, so this GenomeWeb Daily News article is approximately four centuries old in internet time (i.e. around a week), but it's worth going back and reading.
I've previously argued at length that although personal genomics currently offers little in the way of useful, predictive health information, that lack of information in itself represents an important opportunity to educate consumers about the fuzzy nature of common disease genetics.
So long as personal genomics companies represent the data accurately (which the major reputable companies currently do quite well, by and large), their…
pharyngula | April 1, 2009I may have to think about retiring in 15 years or so, and I may just have to move to New Zealand. The trends are all going in the right direction.
There has been a sharp rise in the number of New Zealanders with no religious affiliation, new research shows.
In a study by the University, 40 per cent of respondents say they have no religious affiliation compared to 29 per cent 17 years ago.
Just over a third of New Zealanders describe themselves as religious.
Sounds so lovely. Of course, it's not perfect yet:
Fifty-three per cent say they believe in God (although half of those say they have…
oracknows | April 1, 2009...but sadly, it's not. Jenny McCarthy has struck again.
Yesterday, given the release of Jenny McCarthy's new book espousing antivaccinationism and autism quackery and the attendant media blitz the antivaccine movement has organized to promote it, I predicted that a wave of stupid is about to fall upon our great nation.
Well, the stupid has landed. And how. An interview with Jenny has just been published on the TIME Magazine website in which she "surpasses" herself. In fact, so dense is the stupid emanating from what passes for a "brain" in that empty head of hers that words fail me.…