Science Education & Outreach
sb admin | September 28, 2007If you listened to Science Friday on NPR's Talk of the Nation today, you may have heard Ira Flatow mention a question from "Prospero Linden"— that was me. I was there, live, along with a 30 or 40 other people in the studio audience:
For the last several weeks, Science Friday has been simulcasting over NPR and in Second Life, using Nashville's WPLN audio stream for the purpose. (I had nothing to do with that!) Meanwhile, Ira Flatley, the 2nd life avatar of Ira Flatow (and his extensive staff), together with hosts, listen to and repeat on air the occasional question that comes from the…
sb admin | September 3, 2007Read this book.
First and formost for a book review: Storm World is a good
read. You will not find yourself bogged down or forcing yourself to
push through a book that's "good for you." You will keep reading
because you will want to know more.
As for the book itself: Mooney clearly has a point of view in the
book, and does not hide it. However, that point of view is considered
based on the evidence, and he also admits that it is not exactly the
same as the point of view he expected to have when starting research for
the book. This is not a polemic, it is not a "the sky is falling, we're…
sb admin | July 31, 2007I managed to get through my 15-20 minute "talk," and just as I threw it open for questions Second Life had a database problem and everbody in-world had to be logged out.... We got back in 40 minutes or so later, and I answered questions for a while for people who came back. However, if you were at the talk and wanted to ask questions but didn't come back, I'll be doing a follow-up Q&A session tomorrow (Wednesday August 1) at 10AM PDT at the same location.
Below, I've got a transcript of the talk I gave. Other than fixing some typos and merging things into paragraphs, I haven't edited…
sb admin | July 27, 2007Chad links to an article about a study that shows that good preparation in high school math helps students perform in all science disciplines in college, whereas studying one science in high school doesn't help their performance in other science disciplines in college.
There are a few conclusions that are drawn. The article quotes people who suggest that the "Physics First" movement— that argues Physics should be taught first, with biology and chemistry later— doesn't hold water. Chad resonates with the article, having observed that college students often have woeful preparation in math,…
sb admin | April 30, 2007Following Chad and Jake, I want to jump off from an article in Science about undergraduate research. It's always nice when some sort of survey confirms one's preexisting biases....
In short, the survey found that performing research increased undergraduates' interest in science and technology fields (so-annoyingly-called "STEM" disciplines, for Science Technology Engineering Mathematics). Such undergraduates were also more likely to go on to advanced degrees, although here the causality isn't necessarily clear. The survey did find that students with higher grades tended to be more likely…