Janet D. Stemwedel
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
jstemwedel
Posts by this author
November 1, 2007
With just over 10 hours left in our ScienceBlogs/Donors Choose Blogger Challenge 2007, it's time to think about what happens next. Supporting classroom teachers with your funds is a noble gesture, but it's just a start.
To really get math and science literacy (and enthusiasm) to the levels we'd…
October 31, 2007
In response to my open letter to the ACS, Rudy Baum, the Editor in Chief of Chemical & Engineering News, emailed me some information which I am posting here with his kind permission:
The editorial independence of editors of ACS publications, including C&EN, is guaranteed by the ACS…
October 31, 2007
It looks like you get 1440 extra minutes. And you can blame Presidential candidate (in South Carolina) Stephen Tiberius Colbert. From the DonorsChoose blog:
...our site was flat-out overwhelmed by the massive traffic that resulted from Stephen Colbert and Craig Newmark's announcement around…
October 31, 2007
At the upcoming North Carolina Science Blogging Conference on January 19, 2008, I'll be leading a discussion on the ethics of science blogging (not about blogging about ethics in science). If you attend the conference (and if you're not sucked in by one of the other attractive discussions…
October 31, 2007
I'm told we had a moderate earthquake here last night. Indeed, it is reportedly the largest earthquake in the area since the 1989 Loma Prieta quake -- which, as it happens, was the temblor that welcomed me to the San Francisco Bay Area.
I completely missed it.
You see, I was driving home from the…
October 30, 2007
The 2007 DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge ends tomorrow, and ScienceBlogs readers have met (and exceeded) 10 of the 20 challenges we mounted, raising $47,705.
Here's who's left:
Uncertain Principles: $3442 from 45 donors (0.597 donors/1000 pageviews)
Terra Sigillata: $2081 from 8 donors (0.738…
October 30, 2007
As this is published (about 10 AM Eastern time) there are two hours left before the noon deadline for the last of the drawings for T-shirts, books, mugs, and subscriptions to Seed to thank you for your donation to our DonorChoose Blogger Challenge.
All you have to do is make a donation to one (or…
October 29, 2007
The 2007 DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge is in its last few days, which means there may be enough data to start identifying trends as to which ScienceBlogs readers are the most generous:
By scientific discipline:
Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles is our lone full-time physical sciences blogger…
October 26, 2007
... The Ridger has posted the illustrated sonnet about Saturn's rings that the sprogs and I crafted as a "thank you" for donating to a project in my DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge.
It's not too late to get your own sprog artwork, or nerd poetry, or sprog-illustrated nerd poetry -- and to help…
October 26, 2007
Jennifer is another reader who made a generous donation to one of the projects in my challenge. She wrote:
I felt like I definitely needed
a piece of art work from your very talented crew. ... I'd like
something in the style of Dr. Seuss about reptiles with some
accompanying artwork.
I've done…
October 26, 2007
Ewan made a generous donation to one of the projects in my challenge and wrote me the following:
The concept of a sprog-illustrated nerdy poem was especially appealing... Could I please request a topic of 'brain' (ideally,
hippocampus, but that seemed a little potentially overdemanding)?
The…
October 26, 2007
Dan Hough, a regular ScienceBlogs reader and the webmaster for Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, made a generous donation to my challenge. He requested some insect artwork from the sprogs, and said, "Please tell them from me I think they are really cool!"
Dan, the sprogs think you…
October 26, 2007
The Free-Ride offspring are magnets for questions not easily answered in the framework of the grade school science curriculum. This means, I think, that the Free-Ride parents are going to have to work out some age-appropriate ways to offer explanations. And I have a feeling my molecular model kit…
October 25, 2007
As mentioned before, I'm currently at the Southeast Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (or SERMACS if you're in a hurry) in Greenville, South Carolina. I got in last night, just in time to catch the last 25 minutes or so of Dick Zare's plenary address on "The Chemistry of Propulsion…
October 25, 2007
Like Revere and the folks at The Scientist, I received the series of emails from "ACS insider" questioning the way the American Chemical Society is running its many publications -- and in particular, how compensation of ACS executives (and close ties to the chemical industry) might influence…
October 24, 2007
David Ng at The World's Fair wants me to play along before I head to the airport. Here are the rules:
I'd like to suggest a meme, where the premise is that you will attempt to find 5 statements, which if you were to type into google (preferably google.com, but we'll take the other country…
October 23, 2007
In the last 22.5 days, ScienceBloggers and their generous readers have:
Mounted twenty challenges to fund educational projects through DonorsChoose.
Met (and exceeded!) the targets in five of those challenges (for which I issue a heartfelt "w00t!" to the readers of Retrospectacle, Deep Sea News,…
October 23, 2007
I'm blogging from the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This morning, I was part of a session (along with Bora Zivkovic and Jean-Claude Bradley) entitled "Opening Science to All: Implications of Blogs and Wikis for Social…
October 19, 2007
I know that a lot of features of the world seemed bigger to me when I was a kid than they do now, but I'm starting to think that it's not just a matter of me getting bigger relative to my surroundings. The Free-Ride offspring keep reminding me that it takes a while to really get a sense of scale.…
October 18, 2007
A reader made a generous donation to one of the projects in my challenge in the name of Connor S. (age 8) from Conshohocken, PA. Connor S. in interested in the rainforest, so the donor requested an illustrated poem about the rainforest. The sprogs and I are pleased to provide haiku about the five…
October 18, 2007
Regular commenter ctenotrish made a generous donation to a project in my challenge called Starfish View of the Sea. The project was proposed by the teacher of a 6th grade bilingual science class in a Houston school with a high poverty level (88% of the students in the school qualify for free lunch…
October 15, 2007
Still grading papers (different ones, but still) and I felt the sudden need to draw some bar graphs. Surely I'm not the only one who finds bar graphs soothing.
Am I?
In any case, we're at the halfway mark for the 2007 DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge, and it seemed like a good time to check the…
October 12, 2007
A conversation yesterday as we were running home to get the elder Free-Ride offspring ready for a soccer practice:
Dr. Free-Ride: Do you want to change out of your "picture day" clothes before practice?
Elder offspring: Nah, I'm good. I'll just change into shin guards, soccer socks, and cleats.
Dr…
October 11, 2007
I know it's been quiet here (I've been grading papers), but I wanted to give you a quick glimpse at the ScienceBloggers' progress to date on the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Here's the bar graph:
You'll notice that two blogs (Deep Sea News and Retrospectacle) have exceeded their goals and one…
October 8, 2007
I've just been told that Seed is putting up $15,000 in matching funds for the ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge, as part of the Seed Media Group Science Literacy Grants program.
As it stands, we've already raised just over $13,000. With the match from Seed, that becomes $26,000.
Go check…
October 6, 2007
Today is day 6 of our month-long DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2007, and here's the current progress:
Remember how Mike Dunford raised his initial target of $1588? After taking a moment to bask in the glow of that achievement, he raised his goal to $2000 -- and almost as quickly, his readers met…
October 6, 2007
Yesterday, one of the elder Free-Ride offspring's teammates brought a Rubik's Cube to soccer practice. While this youngster fiddled with the cube during a water break, I mentioned that I knew how to solve it. I was asked to transmit this knowledge, and I promised to write it up and send it to the…
October 5, 2007
As mentioned earlier, the younger Free-Ride offspring's first grade class is learning about states of matter. We continue to get reports back about the content of these lessons, and then the sprogs set about trying to extend them ... in ways that suit their aesthetics more than their parents'…
October 4, 2007
We're in the middle of the fourth day of the month-long DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2007, and thanks to his generous readers Mike Dunford has raised 100% of his initial goal, funding classroom projects that will impact 370 students.
The awesomeness of that is pretty breathtaking.
In light of…
October 4, 2007
I'm sure my jaw shouldn't drop at this sort of glimpse at the thinking of dorm-dwelling undergraduates, and yet it does. Every single time.
From an article in the school paper about violations of the university's student conduct code:
Some students say one problem is students might not know the…