Science Education
clock | July 29, 2008Kevin Zelnio published an article in Seed Magazine, which was placed online yesterday - On the allure of the ocean's novelty:
That is what the deep sea is like. Almost every collection brings up something that I have never seen; that few, if any, have ever found. It is an immense task, in an immense place, cataloging life in the planet's largest ecosystem and trying to understand what drives its diversity. But its constant novelty and rewards keep me sorting through the muck even as my vision starts to blur with sweat and tears and my nostrils burn from the stench that hangs in the salt-…
clock | July 29, 2008Science Communicators of North Carolina:
Saturday, August 16
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Engineers Day at the Museum of Life + Science
Join Triangle area exhibitors including Duke University and IBM for hands-on demonstrations and activities that are fun and educational for people of all ages.
Museum of Life + Science, 433 Murray Avenue, Durham (919) 220-5429
clock | July 28, 2008Martin saw this comment of mine and sprung into action: Name the new 'Carnival of Scientific Life'!
The two big questions are what to call it, and how often to host it, so I'd like your input in the comments below please. I'll be making the final decision on August 1st.
What would be a good name for the carnival? (Ideally something without "carnival" in the title.)
Should it be held monthly, or at some other frequency?
The carnival is intended to cover all aspects of life as a scientist, whether it's the lifestyle, career progress, doing a Ph.D., getting funding, climbing the slippery pole,…
clock | July 28, 2008Like we did the last two years, SciBlings will have a month-long fundraising drive for educational projects via DonorsChoose. More info soon.
For now, check out Janet's first teaser for some info.
Also checkk out the DonorsChoose blog for their information.
For the locals - there is an exciting NC part of this all:
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, an independent private foundation in North Carolina, will support $25,000 in inquiry-based science and mathematics projects through DonorsChoose.org during the 2008 / 2009 school year.
These funds are only available to North Carolina teachers, so take…
clock | July 28, 2008Science Communicators of North Carolina:
Thursday, August 7
7 p.m.
The Beautiful Mind: Making Memories
Dr. Kelly Giovanello of the UNC-CH Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Lab. Part of the Morehead Planetarium Current Science Forum.
250 E. Franklin St., Chapel Hill, (919) 962-1236
clock | July 25, 2008Bjoern Brembs is on a roll! Check all of these out:
Incentivizing open scientific discussion:
Apart from the question of whether the perfect scientist is the one who only spends his time writing papers and doing experiments, what incentives can one think of to provide for blogging, commenting, sharing? I think because all of science relies on creativity, information and debate, the overall value of blogging, commenting and sharing can hardly be overestimated, so what incentives can there be for the individual scientist?
Journals - the dinosaurs of scientific communication:
Today's system of…
clock | July 25, 2008Now this is a title of a paper in a scientific journal that will make one's eyebrows go up: The importance of stupidity in scientific research (by Schwartz J Cell Sci.2008; 121: 1771) :
I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We
had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science,
although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school,
went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major
environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned
to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she
said it was…
clock | July 25, 2008The July issue of our e-newsletter is now available.
http://snipurl.com/34wgh
Highlights:
* Social Networking For Researchers
* Do Research and Teaching Mix?
* Undergrads Create New Science
* Writing An Undergrad Thesis
* Research Conferences Update
* Ongoing Items database and conferences database
* Please contribute to Undercurrents
tsmith | July 25, 2008
As I've mentioned, this has been a busy year. In the span of 3 months, 3 small grants were funded; enough to keep me busy for the next year. Though my training prior to arriving here was almost exclusively in bench microbiology (mostly molecular microbiology/molecular epidemiology), I knew when I took my current job that I wanted to expand that and go beyond just examining whatever samples someone else had on hand, and set up my own studies. Being Iowa, a big focus of our work is rural health and agriculture, so this has taken me out to cattle and pig farms--previously with a technician…
jlynch | July 22, 2008I recently co-authored a paper that discussed the utility of history of science for science (Isis 99: 322-330). The abstract reads:
This essay argues that science education can gain from close engagement with the history of science both in the training of prospective vocational scientists and in educating the broader public about the nature of science. First it shows how historicizing science in the classroom can improve the pedagogical experience of science students and might even help them turn into more effective professional practitioners of science. Then it examines how historians of…
clock | July 21, 2008There is a nice list of sites that offer regular science (and history and philosophy) podcasts. Do you know any others that you can recommend?
clock | July 20, 2008Titles of blog posts have to be short, but I could expand it to something like this:
"Depending on the medium and the context, many scientists can be and often are excellent communicators"
That is what I understood to be the main take-home message of "Sizzle". If you check out all the other blog reviews, even those that are the harshest do not state the opposite, i.e., that the movie pushes the stereotype of scientists as dull, stuffy communicators. Though, some of the commenters on those blog posts - people who could not have seen the movie themselves yet - imply that this was the case.
So…
clock | July 20, 2008Just like they did it last year, Howard Hughes program at Duke is hosting student blogs in their summer program. Check out what the students are writing on their blogs, starting at homepages of the undergraduate students and high school students and going through the blogrolls on the right-hand sidebars.
clock | July 19, 2008Robert Grumbine has a series of posts with thoughts about climate change and what a non-expert can do to get properly informed:
Climate is a messy business:
Climate certainly is a messy business. One of the things that makes it interesting to those of us who work on it is precisely that. Wherever you look, you find something that affects climate, regardless of whether you look at permafrost, sea ice, forests, farms, rivers, factories, sunspots, volcanoes, dust, glaciers, ...
So certainly we have a complicated science and certainly few people are going to understand enough of it to argue the…
clock | July 19, 2008Periodic Table of Videos on YouTube:
This channel has a video about each element on the periodic table.
With help from some clever chemists, I've done all 118, but I'm not stopping here.
Now I'm updating and improving all the videos with new stories, better samples and bigger experiments.
Please subscribe to follow my progress.
Or visit the main website at Periodic Table of Videos
clock | July 18, 2008Tuesday July 22
6:30-8:30 p.m.
After a thousand years, it's still a great technology! Follow the story from papyrus to nano-fibrils with Med Byrd, of the Department of Wood and Paper Science in the NCSU College of Natural Resources. Q&A after his talk. Tir Na Nog 218 South Blount Street, Raleigh, 833-7795
clock | July 17, 2008The third issue of the Open Access journal 'Evolution: Education and Outreach' has been published, and it is again full of good, thought-provoking articles. You can see them (for free, of course) if you click here.
clock | July 14, 2008Yes, I am one of many SciBlings and other bloggers who got offered to pre-screen Randy Olson's new movie "Sizzle" (check the Front Page of scienceblogs.com for links to all the others). I was reluctant at first, but in the end I gave in and agreed to preview a copy. Why was I reluctant? As a scientist, I need to start my piece with a bunch of neatly organized caveats, so here are the reasons why I thought I would not be a good person to review the movie:
- I am just not a good movie critic. Of the thousands of movies I have seen in my life, I disliked perhaps three. I am terribly…
tsmith | July 14, 2008So, as you've probably heard and read around here on Scienceblogs and elsewhere, filmmaker Randy Olson has made a new film about climate change. It's billed as a "mockumentary," and it's certainly a mock...something. There are several nuggets of good stuff in the movie, but they unfortunately get lost in the distractions. More after the jump...
In the early portion of the movie, Randy's wealthy gay benefactors, Mitch and Brian (think "Jack" from Will and Grace times two), say they're upset about global warming--but "they don't know why they're upset." Why didn't Randy explain to them why…
jlynch | July 14, 2008Like many on the blogosphere, I've had the opportunity to view Randy Olson's latest production Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy. Billed as "an effort to understand the confusion around the global warming," the movie claims to be a "novel blend of three genres - mockumentary, documentary, and reality" and that alone illustrates the problem with the movie - it doesn't know what it's trying to be and after spending 85 minutes with it, I had no real clue what point Olson was trying to make and to whom he is making it. Indeed, it is only out of a sense of duty that I continued watching beyond the…