education
sheril | March 23, 2009As promised, photos* from last Friday with 'the Bloggerati'. Here I'm in terrific company with Misha, Bora, and Abel over lunch in Durham:
Bora and I chat with students about why we blog:
* Special thanks to Abel for sharing the images! For a terrific detailed description of the day, visit Terra Sigillata...
ddobbs | March 22, 2009A few days ago I had a brief post on a team of Spanish kids who used a latex balloon and a $60 camera to take photographs of the earth from near the edge of space. My info was sketchy at the time, but an alert reader found and sent me a link to the group's website, which has a nice account, with many photos, of the operation. The page is in Catalan but has a pull-down Google translation option up near the top so you can quickly have it translated. It's a great look at the intense excitement of shoestring-budget science.
Here's the crew:
the trajectory of the balloon:
And along the way,…
gregladen | March 22, 2009
Leo Berman, Republican State Rep in Texas, has proposed a bill that would allow the Institute for Creation Research to issue advanced degrees in Creationism. The faux educational institution, which moved from California to Texas several years ago hoping to dupe the Texans into exactly this sort of idiotic thing, was previously denied this right by the proper regulatory agency. Berman's act is cynical, anti-democratic, and terribly embarrassing for all Texans.
There is a news report here:
A Texas legislator is waging a war of biblical proportions against the science and education…
evolvingthoughts | March 21, 2009There are a lot of folk who think they have a handle on how to communicate science to the general public, and a lot of folk, mostly scientists, who think nobody else does. But I was reading Carl Zimmer's twittering today, about Rebecca Skoot getting a column gig for a new magazine devoted to issues of interest to women, Double X. It hit me that science journalism is not dying, it is having to adapt to a new business model.
Traditional media made its money from advertising and sales. It used a broadcast model of publishing - a single source (the printing presses or the transmitters) to many…
gregladen | March 21, 2009"This is not rocket science."
I would not have done it this way. The teacher on the couch concurs. What would you do?
sporte | March 21, 2009Cofactor Genomics is offering to sequence a genome for a few classes for free using Next Generation DNA Sequencing technology (either Illumina GA or via AB SOLiD).
Quoting from their site:
Cofactor will ask course organizers for a 1 page description of how their ~700Mb sequencing project could be used as an effective teaching aid in their class. We will review and choose the best entries during the month of May. Those entries will be awarded a free sequencing project including project experimental design, sample QC, library construction, sequencing, and computational analysis. Those projects…
grrlscientist | March 21, 2009The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is expanding its on-line video presence with its new YouTube channel! Here you'll find reports from the evolution/creationism wars -- footage of contentious testimony, landmark and illuminating speeches, conference coverage, excerpts from television appearances, and presentations. In the future, look for classroom videos, tutorials for teachers, videos contributed by NCSE members, and much more.
When you visit the NCSE YouTube channel, check out a couple of key areas. At top right you'll see the latest, hot video. (In this case, executive…
gregladen | March 20, 2009This is why we love Genie Scott:
The NCSE now has a channel on You Tube, and at this time you can see most, probably all, of Genie's testimony in Texas. It is very instructive.
GENIE SCOTT IS A MACHINE!!!
Here you'll find reports from the evolution/creationism wars -- footage of contentious testimony, landmark and illuminating speeches, conference coverage, excerpts from television appearances, and presentations. In the future, look for classroom videos, tutorials for teachers, videos contributed by NCSE members, and much more.
When you visit our YouTube channel, check out a couple of…
sheril | March 20, 2009Today Bora, Abel, and I visited Duke's Sanford Institute on Public Policy for the second year in a row to discuss the coverage of science, health, and policy. We chatted with a group of undergraduates about the evolution of science blogs, the emergence of blogging networks, the role of science blogs vs the MSM, and where open-access fits in. Our beloved scibling Isis even made a guest appearance via gchat!
We had a lot of fun and special thanks to GenomeBoy for inviting us to explore ideas with his terrific class! The other 'Beacons of the Bloggerati' had cameras, so photo to come.
After…
rallain | March 20, 2009So, I was in the student computer lab helping a student with a numerical calculation. I couldn't help notice the student next to me was registering for classes. Here is here strategy:
Look at required courses.
Check available classes.
Check ratemyprofessor.com.
Re-check available classes.
Repeat.
So? What is wrong with this? I see a couple of problems. First is the reliability of ratemyprofessor (RMP). I have not looked at my ratings on this site in a long long time, but I am sure they are not accurate. My favorite RMP comment: Dr. Allain teaches astronomy 101 like it was a 400…
grrlscientist | March 20, 2009tags: Lawrence's Goldfinch, Carduelis lawrencei, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Lawrence's Goldfinch, Carduelis lawrencei, photographed in Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 10 April 2005 [larger view].
Date Time Original: 2005:04:10 09:16:02
Exposure Time: 1/249
F-Number: 11.00
ISO: 200
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
bioephemera | March 19, 2009
Illustration by David Parkins, Nature
Today, Nature released a news feature by Geoff Brumfiel on the downturn in mainstream science media. We've all known that this is happening; the alarms become impossible to ignore when Peter Dysktra and his team at CNN lost their jobs last year. For mainstream outlets like CNN or the Boston Globe to cut science may seem appalling - but in an unforgiving economic climate which has already triggered the collapse of major newspapers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, such cuts are logical, because science reporting isn't a big money-maker. The question…
gregladen | March 19, 2009And I'm not talking about new building projects such as the Bell Museum, though such projects certainly are shovel ready as well.
I'm speaking about the simple fact that funding higher education, mainly by funding students, is one of the best possible ways to stimulate the economy.
The American workforce is under educated and under trained. This is almost always true to some extent, but in times when the centers of gravity in industry and business are shifting, it becomes even more true. The simple fact that the nature of the job market has changed dramatically over the last 20 years…
grrlscientist | March 19, 2009tags: Long-eared Owl, Asio otus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Long-eared Owl, Asio otus, photographed at Big Sioux Recreation Area near Brandon, South Dakota. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Terry Sohl, 12 November 2007.
Photo taken with a Canon 50D, 400 5.6L.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
drorzel | March 19, 2009The final exam for my modern physics class is this morning, which means I'll have a bunch of time to kill while I proctor the test. This will likely involve a lot of brainless time-wasting, but I need to be on hand both as a formal guard against cheating, but more importantly to answer questions about the test should any come up.
Our sections are small enough that I don't worry too much about cheating, but it's a much bigger worry at lots of other places, and there are all sorts of ways of dealing with it. So here's a possibly entertaining question to pass the time:
What's the most amusing…
cmooney | March 19, 2009Ed Brayton, who I admire greatly, has a post that runs afoul of my "death of science journalism" sensitivity meter. You see, Ed came across a National Geographic story that says something dumb about "carbon dating." Ed is surely right on the point of substance, and National Geographic should not have made the error. I certainly don't mind him pointing that out; but when you also get something like this--"I've bitched and complained about the sorry state of popular science writing for years. Here's another textbook example..."--I get uppity.
The sorry state of popular science writing is not a…
gregladen | March 18, 2009According to this film, lifted from ABATC
I made a list using whatever gender cues were given of what was seemingly suggesed for boys vs. girls to aspire to. No great surprizes. Well, actually, there are few slightly surprising items on the girls' list. 1
For Boys:
astro-scientist/Astronaut
chemist
biology
physics
sports star who knows about science
musician who knows about science
medicine
security
destruction/evil scientist
Nobel peace prize
cure world hunger
civil engineer
professor
agricultural science
electrochemical engineer
astronomy
pharmacology
philosophy
statesmen
minister…
bioephemera | March 18, 2009
Via Bora's blog, a delightfully cheesy1955 filmstrip about why science education is more important than anything else - even fishing. It starts out slow, but this Sputnik-era treasure turns into a veritable propagandafest about how science literacy is a civic duty. Plus, it raises vital questions like "Why do these kids have weird pseudo-Southern accents even though their parents don't?" and "How can science help Betty 'hook some guy'?"
Remember, women need to know as much about science as some men do! Are you going to be ready?
(Look how bored Betty looks by the end.)
Provenance:…
drorzel | March 18, 2009I needed to generate an electronic recommendation letter for a former student yesterday, and printing the letter on paper and scanning the paper copy seemed a little too... 1998 to be worth doing. As a result, I spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling around with Microsoft Word to come up with a template that looked like the official department letterhead.
Of course, there's nothing in the many pre-installed templates that could easily be modified to suit, because Microsoft employees have the aesthetic sense of a syphilitic squirrel, but I was surprised to discover just how many absurdly…