Science Education
sporte | March 17, 2008One of my colleagues has a two part series on FinchTalk (starting today) that discusses uncertainty in measurement and what that uncertainty means for the present and Next Generation DNA sequencing technologies.
I've been running into this uncertainty myself lately.
I have always known that DNA sequencing errors occur. This is why people build tools for measuring the error rate and why quality measurements are so useful for determining which data to use and which data to believe. But, some of the downstream consequences didn't really hit home for me until a recent project. This project…
clock | March 16, 2008Learn everything you need to know about protein structure, explained clearly and as simply as the topic allows:
Beta Strands and Beta Sheets
Loops and Turns
Levels of Protein Structure
Examples of Protein Structure
Evolution and Variation in Folded Proteins
I think these should be included into the Basic Concepts collection.
Update: Larry has put together a compilation of all his bog posts on Protein Structure.
clock | March 16, 2008The OpenOffice challenge: can you do what needs to be done?
Exploring OpenOffice: what did we learn?, part I
Exploring Open Office: part II, can we have our pie and eat it too?
sporte | March 14, 2008I've been writing quite a bit this week about my search for a cross platform spread sheet program that would support pivot tables and make pie graphs correctly.
This all started because of a bug that my students encountered in Microsoft Excel, on Windows. I'm not personally motivated to look for something new, since Office 2004 on Mac OS 10.5 doesn't seem to have the same bugs that appear on Windows. However, I would like things to work for my students. Since I don't want to have to write instructions for every software system on the planet, Google Docs would be my ideal answer, if it…
clock | March 14, 2008Toronto SciBarCamp starts tonight and I am so jealous for not being there. Perhaps next time. For now, I'll just follow it via blogs.
clock | March 14, 2008Got an e-mail from AAAS and will try to go if at all possible:
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and North Carolina State University, will be holding a one-day workshop "Communicating Science: Tools for Scientists and Engineers" on Thursday, April 3, 2008. We aim to extend an invitation to the faculty scientists, engineers, and Ph.D. students at your institution who would like to attend this workshop, in order to learn more about communicating science to news media and the general public. Please feel free…
sporte | March 13, 2008I think all of us; me, the students the OO advocates, a thoughtful group of commenters, some instructors; I think many of us learned some things that we didn't anticipate the other day and got some interesting glimpses into the ways that other people view and interact with their computers.
Some of the people who participated in the challenge found out that it was harder than they expected.
Lessons learned
Okay, what did we learn?
1. The community is the best thing about Open Source
The Open Office advocates enjoy a challenge and are truly, quite helpful. That was something that adventure…
clock | March 13, 2008My Scifoo friend and prize-winning science photographer Felice Frankel just gave a great interview to Ginny on Page 3.14.
gregladen | March 12, 2008There is a campaign to bring attention, of the public and of congress, to a five year long stagnation of NIH funding, which is being called a broken pipeline. NIH funding had been increased significantly prior to that, to address major shortfalls in funding for mostly medical research in key important issues. However, over the last five years, the dollar amount of funding has remained flat, not even keeping up with inflation, where it really should have increased further, even more than inflation.
This is not just belly-aching by people who would like funding. Those involved are pointing…
sporte | March 12, 2008Okay OpenOffice fans, show me what you can do.
Earlier this week, I wrote about my challenges with a bug in Microsoft Excel that only appears on Windows computers. Since I use a Mac, I didn't know about the bug when I wrote the assignment and I only found out about it after all but one of my students turned in assignment results with nonsensical pie graphs.
So, I asked what other instructors do with software that behaves differently on different computing platforms. I never did hear from any other instructors, but I did hear from lots of Linux fans. And, lots of other people kindly…
terrasig | March 12, 2008[Welcome mental_floss blog and Daily Kos readers. After you read about this outstanding young woman, you can learn more about me, my life story, and this blog here.]
If you read elsewhere at ScienceBlogs.com, you'll know that several bloggers have been discussing race and gender issues in the scientific and medical research communities as well as the challenges facing young scientists who pursue academic research careers. So, I was overjoyed this morning to see this glowing face on Shivani Sud, a local young woman of Indian heritage who took first prize in the Intel Science Talent Search (…
skookumchick | March 11, 2008Thanks to those of you who posted on your ethnic stories. I'm thinking about replies, but need some time to do so.
In the meantime, I've started a couple of online communities for people doing engineering education research - if this sounds like you, check out:
a Facebook group on engineering education research (although I'm not offering to be everyone's FB friend ;-) )
a blog on Engineering Education through Wordpress. If you have the engr.ed research chops, and are interested in writing for this blog, do let us know!
Have other opportunities that readers might be interested in?…
clock | March 11, 2008POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT:
Title: Manager of Web and Publications
Reports to: Director of Operations
Project Exploration Background: Cofounded in 1999 by paleontologist Paul Sereno and educator Gabrielle Lyon, Project Exploration is a nonprofit science education organization that works to make science accessible to the public-- especially minority youth and girls--through personalized experiences with science and scientists. Project Exploration meets its mission through youth development programs, services for schools and teachers, and public programs such as exhibits and online initiatives.…
jlynch | March 11, 2008Theodore Beale, a.k.a. "Vox Day", quote-miner and "Christian libertarian opinion columnist," apparently has issues with women in science. This via Ed Brayton:
Because they are the intellectual driving force of humanity, men will be fine. They will simply continue to do what they have always done and pursue the same challenges they have always pursued, focused on the realities of success rather than its superficial attributes. It is the institutions they are exiting, voluntarily and involuntarily, that will be destroyed instead. It is written that "women ruin everything"; having destroyed the…
gregladen | March 11, 2008Photosynthesis; This is how the British to it (teaching, not photosynthesis).
From Crackle: Biology Education - Photosynthesis for GCSE / K12 ...
I'm not sure why he says we don't know how photosynthesis works.
Look at how well behaved the students are. You can tell this is not America, even without noticing that the guy talks funny.
The graph on the rate of photosynthesis is idealized. This is not the graph for all plants. This won't work for your Alaskan Peas, for instance.
Notice the maximum value for effect on increased CO2. I wonder what ever happened to the old chap..
sporte | March 11, 2008The other day, I wrote that I wanted to make things easier for my students by using the kinds of software that they were likely to have on their computers and the kinds that they are likely to see in the business and biotech world when they graduate from college.
More than one person told me that I should have my students install an entirely different operating system and download OpenOffice to do something that looks a whole lot harder in Open Office than it is in Microsoft Excel.
I guess they missed the part where I said that I wanted to make the students work a little easier.
Before I go…
sporte | March 10, 2008Three (or more) operating systems times three (or more) versions of software with bugs unique to one or systems (that I don't have) means too many systems for me to manage teaching.
Thank the FSM they're not using Linux, too. (Let me see that would be Ubuntu Linux, RedHat Linux, Debian Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, Vine, Turbo, Slackware, etc.. It quickly gets to be too exponential.) Nope, sorry, three versions of Microsoft Office on three different operating systems are bad enough.
This semester, I'm teaching an on-line for the first time ever. The subject isn't new to me. I've taught…
clock | March 8, 2008[rant]So, if you organize a study-group online instead of in meat-space, the old fogies who still remember dinosaurs go all berserk. A student is threatened by expulsion for organizing a Facebook group for studying chemistry. Moreover, as each student got different questions, nobody did the work for others, they only exchanged tips and strategies. See the responses:
The Star:
Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation.
Yes, they are.
Greg:
How much of this is a matter of administrative fear of the internet?
100%.
Larry:
Today, that sense of "…