education
drorzel | October 22, 2009This year's DonorsChoose challenge is doing pretty well, with the total standing at a bit over $2,200. Thanks to all who have donated thus far.
There's a new development in this year's challenge, which is that Hewlett-Packard is going to donate $200,000 to DonorsChoose, which will be divided among Social Media Challenge blogs in proportion to each blog's share of the total Challnge proceeds.
Currently, the Social Media Challenge as a whole has raised $250,000. Which means that the Uncertain Principles challenge is in line to get just under 1% of HP's donation, or not quite $2,000. That's…
grrlscientist | October 22, 2009tags: Rufous Hummingbird, Selasphorous rufus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Rufous Hummingbird, Selasphorous rufus, photographed at Smith Point Hawk Watch, Texas. [I will identify these birds for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 10 October 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/250s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
drorzel | October 22, 2009I've been buried in lab grading for a lot of this week, but I'm finally down to the last few stragglers. The experience has me thinking a bit about what we're doing here, and talking to people in other departments, and it seems like a good question for my wise and worldly readers.
At the moment, we run on 10-week terms, and in a ten-week term, we typically do seven labs (the other three are canceled to make time for exams, or to avoid doing labs in the first or last week of the term. Some fraction of those seven labs are full formal reports, with an abstract, introduction, procedure, results…
grrlscientist | October 22, 2009tags: FLOW, For the Love of Water, pollution, bottled water, film trailer, streaming video
Part six of Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: The World Water Crisis.
grrlscientist | October 21, 2009tags: FLOW, For the Love of Water, pollution, bottled water, film trailer, streaming video
Part five of Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: The World Water Crisis.
clock | October 21, 2009You heard of HP, didn't you? It's a person (or company, perhaps Hewlett Packard for all I know) who donated to every single challenge on Social Media Challenge Giving Pages on DonorsChoose!
And now I hear that HP wants to give even more - but there is a method to that madness: you have to donate first! More anyone raises by Sunday, more that person's Challenge gets from HP:
HP has been tracking the competition closely and has already made a $50 contribution to your page, as a result of all of your hard work. The good news? HP wants to make yet another contribution to your Giving Page. The…
grrlscientist | October 21, 2009tags: Crested Caracara, Southern Caracara, Common Caracara, Mexican Eagle, Polyborus plancus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Crested Caracara, also known as the Southern or Common Caracara, or as the Mexican Eagle, Polyborus plancus, photographed at Smith Point Hawk Watch, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 30 September 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/1250s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds…
grrlscientist | October 21, 2009tags: SEM, ASPEX Corp, DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
Would you like a FREE, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image of an object that you've always wanted to see really close up? Stephanie at ASPEX Corporation has offered a free benchtop SEM scan as a prize to one lucky person who donates to my DonorsChoose Challenge! If you win, you could send them anything to scan (as long as it fits into an envelope); lunch room mystery meat, a fingernail clipping, or even a dead insect .. anything you'd like to see a picture of under a powerful microscope. Here's an…
drorzel | October 21, 2009As mentioned on Twitter, I spent much of yesterday reading and rating a huge number of grant proposals. As such, I've looked at a lot of CV's and resumes, and the contrast is striking. People who work in industry tend to use a resume format that is mostly just a list of jobs and degrees, while academics... well, we do go on.
"CV" stands for "curriculum vitae" which is Latin for "every damn thing I've done in my life." It's a much more comprehensive listing than you find on a corporate resume, including not just the important events and publications of a person's career, but everything. Where…
grrlscientist | October 21, 2009tags: FLOW, For the Love of Water, pollution, bottled water, film trailer, streaming video
Part four of Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: The World Water Crisis.
grrlscientist | October 20, 2009tags: FLOW, For the Love of Water, pollution, bottled water, film trailer, streaming video
Part three of Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: The World Water Crisis.
grrlscientist | October 20, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
I am focusing on this project, For the Birds!, because it targets fifth grade kids, the perfect age to get them interested in birds for life. Further, this is a high-poverty classroom in NYC (my home), and I wish to help the kids here develop an appreciation for the glorious bird life that migrates through here and resides in this large city. But this is an expensive project because they are asking for 15 binoculars for a classroom of 30 kids, so I donated $300 to this project to get it started. Will you donate money to…
grrlscientist | October 20, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
One of my donors, HP, has provided $200,000 to the DonorsChoose Social Media Challenge BUT to win these funds for our science classrooms, all of us must donate more money. Here's what DonorsChoose writes;
HP has been tracking the competition closely and has already made a $50 contribution to your page, as a result of all of your hard work. The good news? HP wants to make yet another contribution to your Giving Page. The more you raise by this Sunday, October 25, the more HP will contribute!
Next week, we will distribute…
grrlscientist | October 20, 2009tags: Gambel's Quail, Callipepla gambelii, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Gambel's Quail, Callipepla gambelii, photographed near San Manuel, Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Dan Logen, 17 April 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D300 and 600 mm VR lens ISO 320, f/8, 1/640.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | October 19, 2009tags: FLOW, For the Love of Water, pollution, bottled water, film trailer, streaming video
Part two of Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: The World Water Crisis.
grrlscientist | October 19, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
Four projects in my "Biology is Life" Challenge have been fully funded, and the teachers for each project have posted thank you letters that you can read here: The Viking Shark Project, the Cow Eye Dissection project, the Please Pass Me the Scalpel, Nurse project, and the A Room Without A View project.
We need to do more to help impoverished kids, so please check out the unfunded proposals in the "Biology is Life" Challenge that still need your help by clicking on the above widget.
And don't forget, Princeton University…
ejohnson | October 19, 2009Last week, ScienceBloggers celebrated Earth Science Week with a flood of geocentric posts. This year's theme this was Understanding Climate, and was the basis for a whole host of events in the coming days. Tuesday was No Child Left Inside Day, dedicated to taking kids outside to learn and play. If you weren't able to take kids outside, Kim Hannula at All of My Faults Are Stress Related provided an alternative: Donate to the Geobloggers Giving Kids the Earth challenge on DonorsChoose.org. Anne at Highly Allochthonous hand selected five classroom projects for funding, and Anne and Chris will…
drorzel | October 19, 2009Via Michael Nielsen on Twitter, a Wired article and a research group website for the Stanford Study of Writing. As the Wired piece reports, the group has done a large study of student writing, and finds that modern college students write more and are better writers than students in the past.
This is a little hard to square with my personal experience (he says, procrastinating from grading a depressingly large stack of student lab reports), and that of many of the commenters at Wired. There are enough caveats in the description of the study that these needn't be contradictory, though that's…
grrlscientist | October 19, 2009tags: Green Parakeet, Green Conure, Aratinga holochlora, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery birds] Green Parakeets, also known as Green Conures, Aratinga holochlora, photographed at Elizabeth Street Parrotry, Brownsville, Texas. [I will identify these birds for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 7 April 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/1000s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
The Green Parakeet, Aratinga holochlora, is a medium-sized parrot that is native to Central…
grrlscientist | October 18, 2009tags: FLOW, For the Love of Water, pollution, bottled water, film trailer, streaming video
Part one of Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: The World Water Crisis.