When I go around proselatizing for Open Access, I always try to remember to point out that the potential users are not just scientists and physicians in the developing world, or researchers at low-tier or community colleges, but also high schools. So, I was very happy to hear about the existence of Real Science, a website that uses the latest freely available research to use in classrooms:
Imagine teaching the latest science on the same day it appears in the newspapers.
Imagine the kick the kids will get when they say to their parents watching the news on TV: "We did that in school today. It's like this ...."
We get information from sources around the world, sift it to find newsworthy nuggets, then turn these into free teaching and learning resources that grab young people's interest and hold their attention.
We devise activities that develop understanding, support groupwork and guide pupils to explore the issues - scientific, ethical, environmental - raised by the latest science news.
We provide links to free resources, activities and lesson plans for teachers and online activities for children and young people.
See, for instance how they covered recent papers on cocktail chatter, walking pterosaurs and dinosaur tracks. Do you like it?
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The first article I looked at was a tolerable, medium quality science news article, but a terrible high school teaching tool. Here's a quote:
http://www.realscience.org.uk/science-news-behind-mask.html
Warning cries, mating calls, the whispered words of a hot date in a noisy restaurant - these can all be heard above the "background cacophony". Now Alexander Gutschalk (Heidelberg University), Christophe Micheyl and Andrew J. Oxenham (both University of Minnesota) have discovered where in the brain this happens.
I feel the main science lesson to teach when working from primary sources is that science is a gradual process where each person adds more to the picture. This article (beyond the single bad quote) makes it sounds as if we knew almost nothing about the cocktail party effect before this paper and now it's understood. If anything we already knew roughly where it happens and the authors help us better understand how it happens. If you're going to educate with primary sources you need to look at the paper's introduction and discussion and not just the methods and results.
There are also small errors like saying someone is "wired up" to an MEG machine, but that's not a huge problem.
That said, it's a great idea and having open access to use for this is great.
The article doesn't make it sound like we knew nothing about the cocktail party effect before the paper, the article is merely providing enough background information for students and teachers to understand the new finding.
I think sites like this are great, especially with the follow up questions for classroom discussion. I'm concerned that American teachers won't be able to benefit from such supplemental material because they are required to teach only to the NCLB standards and lack the flexibility for such intellectual excursions.
Commenter bsci is also wrong in what seems to be his main point - that "we already knew roughly where it happens and the authors help us better understand how it happens".
On the contrary, finding out precisely when and where conscious awareness of a sound first appears was the purpose of Gutschalk et al's research. It was also the reason they used MEG, with its high temporal resolution, for their experiments.
The team's overall conclusion in their paper, which I suggest the Real Science people have studied more thoroughly than bsci, is this:
'... we isolated a neural response component in the latency range of 50-250 ms, which was only present for detected sounds. We propose that this component, the "awareness related negativity," specifically reflects conscious sound perception. In contrast, earlier responses in the auditory cortex were evoked by both detected and undetected target tones. These results suggest that conscious sound perception emerges from within the auditory cortex.'
Also it's a small point as bsci says but he is wrong too, and Real Science is right, about "wired-up".
Subjects certainly are wired-up to an MEG machine, since they have coils attached to their heads. Only way I can make sense of this part of bsci's comment is if he thinks the phrase "wired-up" necessarily implies an invasive procedure. It doesn't.
Thanks guys. While I was trying to find the time to respond you've done the hard work for me. I think your site's great also, Ryan. First time I'd visited and it made me laugh ... and think.
What more can you ask for?
Sarah,
Have you ever seen an MEG machine? Not a single wire touches your head. The SQUID detectors are enclosed and surrounded by liquid helium so that they can be kept at around 4 degrees Kelvin.
There are also many studies on the conscious awareness of sound including in noisy environments. Many have used EEG & MEG (both high temporal resolution) and fMRI. Their paper is novel, but I'd love to see the incrementalism of science stressed more. "The next revolutionary finding" is the common trade of lay news articles. This site has the space and ability to do more.
bsci,
Your phrase "The next revolutionary finding" appears nowhere in our story - or indeed the Real Science website.
Coils can be attached to determine the position and orientation of a subject's head during MEG, (see for example www.aston.ac.uk/lhs/research/facilities/meg/faq.jsp).
They aren't "lay news articles". I'm a physicist.
Here's a suggestion:
Next PloS paper that appeals to you, study it, write 700 words that explain it to 7-8th-graders and their often scientifically untutored teachers, do the pop-definitions of hard words, formulate twenty questions that lead a young reader through the text gradually and, towards the end, pose tough challenges for the more able, find appealing, age-appropriate visual, audio, animated and simple text hyperlinks, and devise a graduated set of discussion and research questions to engage youngsters with the science, the wider issues, the implications and applications raised by this latest piece of scientific research.
Do this in half a day since you have a full-time job. Then send it to us.
If it's good enough we will post it on Real Science.
Hi Douglas,
I was a bit harsh in my original comment. I definitely like the idea and the direction of the site. I am critical, but it I consider it a constructive (if impolitely worded) criticism. The first article I chose hit one of my sore points regarding science reporting when you described a discovery out of context of the preceding research. I know writing this site is hard to do and I greatly respect that you are doing it.
I really might take you up on the offer to send in someone that jumps out at me. It's unclear from the website, but is everything written by you? If you are interested in accepting other's work, it might be work adding a specific request on the site.
As for MEG, there might be wires connected to something like to help adjust data processing for head motion, but MEG data will be collected whether or not the wires are there It's like saying you are participating to a fitness study and they wired you up to the bicycle rather than wired you up to a heart monitor. I am nitpicking a bit, but "wire up" is one of those phrases that sometimes a shorthand to make technology seem more complex or scary.
Just a bit. Also condemning me, to some extent, for crimes committed by others, I feel.
I do like the more constructive tone of this comment, however.
The suggestion that you might write a piece for the site, currently entirely mine, was genuine.
It would certainly benefit from input by others with different areas of expertise to my own (physics, astronomy, dynamic systems, education).
I read a great deal of modern biology, for instance, and I believe physics training, curiosity and thinking skills can take you a fair way in any scientific field. But I'm no expert in biology or chemistry, and you can't beat actual research experience.