I’ve always been marginally interested in the intersection between science and religion — I think in part because I do have a strong spiritual connection to the world, but through my awe in the workings of the natural world.  I’ve been told by a Christian that I worship the “created” (i.e., the natural world and all its wonders) rather than the Creator (i.e., God).  Yet, I have a deep and abiding respect for other people and their beliefs, especially after my time in a small village in Africa.  I’m not religious, but I am spiritual, and interested in where there are intersections between how I see the world, and how so many others do.    So when I was recently sent  The Constant Fire: Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate (by Adam Frank, an astronomer and writer) to take a look and write about it on the blog, I was curious about it.  It took me a long time to get around to it, but here’s my take on it.

Overall, the book had some really interesting ideas.  The basic premise was that science and religion needn’t be at odds, as they are now (and indeed, the two were not always at “war”) because they are both serving the same basic human desire.  That desire is the urge to understand the world around us and to touch the “divine” or “sacred” — the part of the world that is outside our mundane experience .

The constant fire is the aspiration to know what is essential, what is real, what is true.  It emerges from the elemental experience of the world as sacred.  Mythic narratives are one expression of that aspiration.  Scientific narratives are another.

So, since both science and religion/myth come from the same wellspring origin, they’re not necessarily in conflict.  Regardless of whether you buy his argument (and I bet many religious people have a strong reaction to the equating of religious stories with “myth”), he does have some great history of scientific accounts throughout.  My main beef with the book was that I felt that I got the main point in the first chapter and didn’t get too much out of the rest of the book — it didn’t need to be so long.  But, hey, if you’re grooving on it, I guess you’d be glad that he went into the detail and different examples that he did.

I got particularly interested about halfway through, when he began to describe how both science and religion contain their own narrative structure.  As a science writer and educator, I’ve been drawn to the idea of narrative and story.  The best communication of science, in any venue, is a weaving of a story.  Presentation of data at a conference, an article written for the public, or a lecture in a university — if there is not a narrative arc, your audience is likely to get lost. “There is no meaning in the data by themselves,” he writes.  They’re just numbers, and we seek meaning by looking for patterns in the numbers.

The world gives us data.  We look for patterns.  Then we find a reason for the pattern, and that reason becomes a story.

For example, he describes the currently understood account of how the universe came to be, from the Big Bang to present day.  We create a narrative based on the data and the patterns it presents.  And he describes creation stories from various cultures.  These are two perspectives on the question of “how did we come to be here?”

Myths are stories because that is how human beings create meaning.  Stories are how we structure our response to experiences of the world’s sacred character.

Both creation myths and stories, and scientific accounts of the origin of the universe, bring us outside our mundane experience of the world and closer to the sense of awe of how the world is. Scientific data, for example, takes us that much closer to the sacred by providing us with different sacred experiences, “from satellite images of the earth at night to PET scans of the human brain.”  So, science is a gateway to a deep and moving experience of the world.  I liked this thread very much.

I’m not sure yet what I think of Joseph Campbell, but Adam Frank describes his work about the universality of myths.  For example, there are numerous stories of a great flood that wipes out mankind, due to humanity’s folly.  I’m sure Frank isn’t the first to point this out, but the current climate change concern has this same narrative thread — we will be done in by our own actions.  I’m not trying to cast any doubt on climate change (i.e., it’s not a myth), but recognizing this similarity between the ideas of climate change and flood myths is very interesting to me.  We do have a collective sense of guilt (or, at least people in my demographic do) and of impending doom.  Global warming has become a moral issue — a now important part of that story.

Another aspect that I enjoyed about the book was an idea, towards the end, about how mathematics and myth are both expressions of how our brain works.  Our brain seeks patterns, and thus invented both mathematics and myth.   In this way, he says, “there is no separate truth ‘out there’, no realm of archetypes and Platonic forms.”  So, both myth and mathematics are the brain’s response to the physical world.

For those who want a nice summary of the main ideas of the book, he gives a handy list for those of us who got lost in his meanderings:

1. Warfare is not the only way to tell the story of science and religion
2. The emphasis on results in science and religion is misguided and sterile
3. Religious experience is more important than religious doctrine in thinking about connections with science
4. Science, in its practice and fruits, manifests hierophanies (sacred character)
5. Science functions as myth in providing hierophanies through sacred narratives of the cosmos and our place within it
6. Science’s roots in myth reveal its living connections with spiritual endeavor
7. Transcendent realities may or may not exist but are not necessary for science to be recognized as a means to apprehend the sacred
8. The braiding of science and spiritual endeavor by means of their common roots in myth can support a global ethos for the application of science as we pass through the bottleneck of the next century.

So, overall, I liked many of these ideas but wasn’t transported by the book.  Maybe it’s one of the cases of “If you like this sort of thing, it’s the sort of thing you’ll like.”

These publishers were smart.  They sent it to several other bloggers (like Science after Sunclipse and Fine Structure) and the book has its own blog too.  Great way to advertise a book.  So if you want to see what others are saying about it, just Google.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

Here’s a wonderful tidbit from a book that every physics teacher should have — The Flying Circus of Physics.  My old mentor PD gave it to me with the inscription, “until I write my book of physics stories, this is the best collection of science stories in print.”  As much as I love Paul, I think even he’d have a big task to outdo the wide array of stories and strange facts in this book (though I’d love to see him try!).  Need something to spice up a lecture on sound?  How about an explanation of why we hear our upstairs neighbors more than they hear us?  Or need a story to make the idea of pressure come alive?  How about the girl who got her tongue stuck in a bottle and needed glass cutters to help her get free?

So here’s the story of how electricity helps flowers grow.  We generally think of pollination as being a sort of accidental process — the bee gets himself all covered in yellow snow at one flower, and then loses some of it at the next flower.  No, it turns out that bees get positively charged (they lose some electrons) as they fly through the air.  When the positive bee approaches the neutral flower, that induces a charge in the pollen, which jumps onto the bee.

This is the same phenomenon as when you rub a balloon on your sweater.  The balloon becomes positively charged and when you bring it to the wall, it induces a charge in the wall.  Thus, it sticks to the wall.  There’s a nice simulation of this effect here.

Anyway, the pollen sticks to the hairs on the bee.  If it stuck to the bee itself, it would lose its charge.  The hair acts as an insulator, keeping the pollen grain just far enough away to keep it charged, and thus attracted to the bee.

Now, when the bee goes to the next flower, it induces a negative charge in the stigma of that flower.  The pollen grains are more strongly affected by that concentrated negative charge (the stigma, after all, has more charge than the bee, it’s connected to the ground so has an infinite source of electrons to draw from), and the pollen grain is polarized in the opposite way and jumps to the flower.

Wow.  I wonder if pollination doesn’t work as well in moist climates, then?  Is that why Colorado wildflowers are so stunning in their concentrations?

Bee Picture from TTaylor

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

I don’t usually post job listings on the blog, but I *love* the local NSDL office and would be so happy to see someone excellent in this job opening.  See below — it’s a really great opportunity for someone qualified.

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) (http://nsdl.org), based at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in Boulder, CO is seeking candidates for an Outreach and Professional Development Specialist.  The full position announcement and application procedures can be found on the UCAR website at:

http://bit.ly/cKNwYq

This position is responsible for leading efforts that inform and engage NSDL’s stakeholder and user communities. Assists the Director of Education and Strategic Partnerships in developing and implementing strategies to build significant use of the library and ensure that the NSDL is educationally beneficial across all science, technology, engineering and mathematics education communities. Leverages the use of online tools and social media as new outreach and engagement mechanisms for NSDL. Measures and analyzes an array of metrics to interpret progress toward goals for NSDL’s usage and impact. Sets direction for, designs and delivers professional development programming for NSDL’s educational users that also helps to inform audience needs, practices and incentives for engagement. This position includes responsibilities for representing NSDL in a variety of public and professional venues.

Minimum requirements include:
* Bachelor’s degree in education or a science/mathematics field; and
* at least three years of experience in K-16 and/or public education in formal or informal settings; and
* at least three years of experience in teacher/faculty professional development design, delivery, and evaluation.

This is a full-time replacement position. Initial consideration will be given to applications received prior to Friday, February 12, 2010. Thereafter, applications will be reviewed on an as-needed basis.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

Here’s a list o’ lists, a compilation of compilations, all sorts of science geek resources that you might find helpful!

First, here’s a list of blogs about women and science (mine made the list, woo-hoo!).  This is a nice little list with descriptions of each of the blogs and their perspective (from Under the Microscope, via the Feminist Press)

Top 10 viewed science videos from Biocompare. They say: From an 80’s hair metal power ballad about electrical impedance-based cell monitoring systems to a “disco hit” on PCR reagents, you can have a laugh and learn.  Who says science can’t be fun?

100 Killer iTTunes Feeds for Serious Science Geeks. If you’ve got a penchant for getting your science education via podcast, here’s a list to browse (from Online Colleges)

Top 200 Education Blogs. If there’s something you’re looking for, there must be something on that extensive of a list (from the Guide to Online Schools)

Best Open Science Courses on the web.   (From Online Colleges)  and similarly, Free Online Courses.  A collection of courses in just about every subject imaginable from MIT, Yale, Berkele, etc.  (From Guide to Online Schools)

Geek on.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

Stick your hand in water and pull it out. You can tell that it’s wet, it “looks” wet.

But then try this. Stick your hand underwater and look at it while it’s still underwater.   It doesn’t really look wet.

And even more striking — Look at your wet hand in a mirror.  Now plunge your hand underwater, and look at it in the mirror underwater.  It not only doesn’t look wet, it looks bone dry!

It’s a pretty simple answer to a neat little experiment.  But before I give you the answer, think a moment.  How might you try to figure out the answer?  What are some tools you could use to figure out why this is the way it is?

Well, when your hand is wet, your eye can tell that it’s wet because there’s a layer of water on the hand.  Light reflects from that water more strongly than it does from your skin, so it looks “shiny” because of that extra reflectivity.

When your hand is entirely under water, though, there is no surface layer of water on the hand.  The entire hand is under water, so the only shiny reflection is from the surface of the water itself.

But what about when the extra trick with the mirror is added?  All I can think is that this tricks the mind a little bit.  Instead of looking at the hand underwater, you see a reflection of the hand, and so it’s out of context.  Your mind just sees the hand, and doesn’t compensate for the fact that it’s underwater.  I’d love to hear a more rigorous explanation of this though!

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

NBC Learn has a bunch of free online educational videos, such as word roots and documentaries.  Now, with the NSF, they also have a set of videos all about the winter olympic games!  The science of snowboarding, hockey, figure skating, and more!  I took a look and was favorably impressed — they’re about 5 minutes long, well produced and give a variety of explanations.  They’re mostly physics related, it appears, and would be great supplements to a high school or college physics class.  And the science of snowboarding has a great visual demonstration from my old mentor, Paul Doherty (but he’s not snowboarding!)

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

Looking for some activities to jazz up your class lecture on the cell and biology?  Here are a few hands-on teaching activities for middle school or high school:

Here are some cool cells to look at under a microscope:

• Cheek cells
• Onion cells
• Thin smears of ripe versus green banana, stained lightly with iodine.  Says Karen Kalumuck:  “You should see sickle-shaped structures that are amyloplastics – starch storage organelles.  You’ll see more of these in one of the types of bananas than the other, and can correlate with taste.  Predict which banana will have more darkly staining amyloplasts?  What happens to the starch?
• Compare tomato cells with pulp cells.  The skin cells are bricklike, providing structure, whereas the pulp cells are like balloons, to store starch with the lowest surface area to volume ratio.

No access to a microscope? Check out the Exploratorium’s Microscope Imaging Station — you can see videos of sea urchin cells dividing, stem cells, a zebrafish heart cell beating, and more. Any of the images here can be used in educational settings.

You can also build a cell model, and “scale up” cell and organelle dimensions to human scale.  If a cell was the size of my head, how big would a mitochrondria be?  Or, build a 3D diaorama inside a shoebox.  One teacher uses the analogy of a school — the nucleus is the principal’s office, the DNA is the school files, the teachers are the ribosomes, the students would be proteins, and the school bus is a vesicle.  Or, list a set of different analogies (the cell is like “The Simpsons”, the cell is like “a city”)  and let students choose, and make their set of analogical functions.

You can also model a cell membrane using soap film. You can stick a wet finger through a bubble film, just like plasma membranes are selectively permeable.   See this activity here.

This Traits of Life website at the Exploratorium has a set of online interactives and downloadable posters and articles.

You can do a play or drama about the cell — here’s an example about the Immune System from our teaching tips podcast.

Create a bingo or board game where students read off the functions of the parts of their cells, and then place those parts on the cell diagram.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

I recently wrote an article for the National Association of Science Writers, on my career path to becoming a freelance science educator and writer.  It’s on the members-only part of the site here, but dear readers, I give it to you here to enjoy!  A big thanks to Cathy Dold for asking me to write it, and giving me great editorial comments.

——————

Stephanie Chasteen, a science education and communication consultant, was getting a PhD in physics when she realized she was more interested in learning about science than actually doing it. Time for a career change. Stephanie discusses how she launched a “do-it-yourself” program to learn science writing while still working on her PhD.

————————

I found out about science writing in an unlikely place: the hot and sweaty West African nation of Guinea. I was working as a Peace Corps volunteer, and one day happened to meet a successful writer for Science magazine who was visiting her boyfriend, another volunteer. Her enthusiasm for science writing got me hooked on the idea of using my creative side to express and explore my love of the natural world. Twelve years later, I’m a writer who specializes in science education, as well as a physicist. I’m one of the relatively few writers who gritted her teeth through the whole game of doctor, working on my PhD while squeezing in writing experience on the side. Here is my story: what I did, and how it worked for me.

The Science Gristmill — Dr. Steph

Like many other science writers, I found that I loved learning about science more than actually doing it. So once my classes were done and I began the research for my PhD, my enthusiasm for the degree began to wane. I began to wonder if I should change my career track. I read books and attended NASW conferences to learn more about science writing, and I posed the question to many writers: “Should I finish the degree?” I was told that in some venues (such as newspapers) the doctorate might count against me, since I would be numbered among the lost souls who could no longer communicate with regular people. But for the most part, people looked slightly wistful. “Finish it,” they told me. “It will open doors.”

I wasn’t entirely convinced, and I applied to the science writing program at my university — the University of California-Santa Cruz — then run by John Wilkes. John liked me and my work, but he claimed he wasn’t sure that I would leave my PhD program if he were to accept me.

It was clear that if I wanted to learn to communicate science, I would have to put together my own learning program. A friendly phooey on John; I would show him!

Do-it-Yourself Science Writing

I continued to suffer through my PhD research, while also launching my science journalism quest.

I knew I needed some directed training in writing, so I enrolled in a journalism class at Santa Cruz. I recommend this highly to anyone. I learned the essential features of a story and got hands-on editing practice. I also wanted clips, and the instructor was well-connected with the local paper. She managed to get two of my pieces for the class (written on my own research area of solar energy) published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. After the class ended, I continued to write for the Sentinel, for peanuts, to get those precious clips and more experience.

I also kept in contact with the Santa Cruz science writing program, and traveled with their students to conferences. By making myself visible in this way, I developed valuable contacts and connections. When the Stanford News Service didn’t fill their internship that semester, I heard about it from these contacts, and offered to write some pieces for the service. “Write for free” is the first piece of advice I give to others (look up “reciprocity (social psychology)” on Wikipedia). I got valuable editing and assistance from the people to whom I donated my reporting and writing time. Plus, one of my press releases for Stanford garnered the attention of a writer for National Geographic, leading to my first writing gig in a (different) national magazine.

The Best Job I’ll Never Have

But I had a higher plan. When talking to other science writers at conferences, I’d been told that the two best routes for a scientist like me were to go through the Santa Cruz program (oh, well), or to get a fellowship with the AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellows program. So I gathered enough clips to create a good portfolio, and was accepted as a fellow. “Where would you like to be placed?” the fellowship staff asked. I hadn’t really thought about it. “NPR would be cool,” I suggested. My luck was golden; no one else had asked for the National Public Radio assignment. So I was off to the science desk at NPR, in Washington, D.C.

At NPR, I learned the high standards of excellence of national science reporting, including the nuances of language, the delicacies of health study implications, the dirty job of digging stories out of press releases and conferences, and how to write short, short, SHORT. I developed a deep respect for the science reporters and their craft, and discovered a latent love for audio. NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg said I had a “good radio voice.” I was in heaven.

Helen Fields, another former NPR intern, once told me wistfully, “I want my internship back!” And so do I. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

NPR was a delightful tease — a wonderful internship experience, but a job I’m unlikely to land permanently. Hence, “the best job I’ll never have.” But that internship gave me so much. Not only did I gain great experience at NPR, but the name carries a lot of clout. Even people who don’t know the AAAS mass media fellowship know the name “NPR.” So, it’s certainly helpful if you can snag an internship at a nationally recognized venue; the NASW internship fairs can help with that quest. And, another theme song from this experience is, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

What About That Pesky PhD?

Right about now you might be wondering how I managed to do all this and work on my PhD. I was very fortunate to have an extremely supportive advisor during my degree work. She granted me time off in the summer to do the AAAS fellowship, and when a contact arranged for me to take a researcher position with Twin Cities Public Television, she supported that as well. Other PhD students aren’t so lucky; their advisors keep them under lock and key. But, many PhD students are also too shy to ask, and remember, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Workaholic tendencies come in handy, too.

Selling Myself

In the last years of my PhD, I became my own business. I continued to teach myself about science writing and communication, and I marketed myself. Networking always feels slimy when you’re doing it as a means to an end, so I approach it with a sense of genuine curiosity and interest in people. Here are some of the surprising ways that my passionate delving into science communication has led to personal connections and jobs:

• I volunteered to give a presentation at a science book club, which led to an introduction to physicist/writer Michael Riordan. He got me the researcher position at Twin Cities Public Television.
• I offered to edit the physics laboratory manuals at Santa Cruz in lieu of a teaching assistantship, gaining valuable writing experience.
• I audited an environmental writing course, befriending the instructor, Sarah Rabkin. She gave me professional advice and invited me back several times to present to her class on my career.
• Overhearing a writer trying to explain dark matter in the 30 seconds before a NASW talk, I introduced myself as a fellow physicist. I have now written for David Ehrenstein (Physical Review Focus) a few times, and he is a friendly professional contact.
• I wrote several press releases, for free, for the Stanford Report. One garnered the attention of the editor of a national magazine. He asked me to write a feature article on the topic, and I continued to contribute to that publication.
• I contacted the husband of a family friend to find out more about science writing (these “informational interviews” are fantastic ways to find out about a field and get connections). I subsequently wrote a piece for the science career website he edited.
• At the suggestion of my advisor, I contacted a scientist who was starting an ambitious public outreach project. He hired me as project manager, and through that job I met museum directors from around the country, science education specialists, and a national grantwriter. I still call on many of those contacts, and that is where I was introduced to the central figures at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco.

The Exploratorium (The Other Best Job I’ll Never Have)

Soon after receiving my PhD, I heard that the Exploratorium was seeking a PhD physicist for a National Science Foundation-funded postdoctoral position running teacher workshops. I got the job and accepted enthusiastically, even though it represented a definitive career shift away from traditional science journalism and toward science education. While at the Exploratorium, however, I continued to write. In particular, I convinced the museum to give me a crack at creating their first regular podcast series, for their nanotechnology program. Through this and another podcast series, I learned the art of podcast production, and I have now produced podcasts as a freelancer, including a series for elementary teachers for the National Science Digital Library, and interview segments for Science magazine.

While I do a small amount of traditional science journalism, today my main career is devoted to improving science education and supporting teacher professional development. I create videos and write papers on effective pedagogy, blog for science teachers, produce podcasts to communicate polar science to elementary teachers, design professional development curricula, and evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs. For me, writing is one of the tools I carry in my kit toward creating effective education programs.

Lessons Learned

I’ve been continually inspired by the simple fact that science writers are really nice people. I have asked for advice and assistance from many talented and intelligent writers, and they have given it freely, for the most part. While some writers have ignored my contact or questions, they are rare.

It’s worked for me to be self-promoting without being pushy. I keep attractive business cards in my back pocket and distribute them freely. I give a little to get a little — I cultivate a genuine curiosity in what other people are doing, and ask questions to show it, but also have an elevator speech ready about myself — a verbal resume. I have found ways to do this that work with my innate shyness and introversion, though it’s always a continuing process.

Almost everything interesting that’s happened in my career was the result of me asking someone for something, such as an exception to the rules or the chance to do something new. On the other hand, it’s important to realize that rules are there for a reason, and there is a time to go with the flow. Being flexible and accommodating gains you valuable goodwill. There are times when I wish I’d recognized this line more clearly.

Lastly, writing takes practice. My blog gives me a public platform that helps me market myself, but it also gets me to write something every week. I also got writing practice by writing for free, creating podcasts, and writing as much as I could within jobs that were not focused on writing.

For the record, in the end I have mixed feelings about having completed the doctorate. It did open doors, and I am able to work on higher-level projects than I ever would have if I had left with a master’s. My professional life is now rich and varied, and I have a lot of control over my work. On the other hand, I spent three miserable years in the lab and, because I didn’t enjoy the process, I did not soak up many of the skills in problem-solving and research that are the mark of a PhD. I have a valuable piece of paper, but it’s as much a symbol of my stubborn nature and innate intelligence as it is a symbol of a doctorate-level understanding and aptitude. If this is a decision that you are trying to make for yourself, there is no easy answer as to the right path.

I’ll close with a story that defines my rather indirect professional path. I tell this to all people who ask me about my career, which defines the word “alternative.” “I’m like bacteria,” I tell them. Bacteria — thermophilic or acidophilic bacteria, for example — do not “know” that the hot spot or acidic island is “over there.” They have no overall map of their surroundings to direct their movement in a straight line towards what they seek. What they sense instead is a local gradient — a small change, right next to them. It’s a little warmer that way. They move slightly. They feel it out again. Move. Feel. Move. And feel. The resulting path is a somewhat jagged, but non-random, path toward the thing that they love. And so is mine. I could not have predicted, on that hot, bright day in Guinea, that I would end up writing for science teachers. But I listened to a woman talk about science communication and something perked up inside me. That way, it’s a little warmer that way. And I took a step.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

It seems to be in vogue to teach about climate change.  Thank god.  I mean, is there anything else more confusing nowadays?  Teaching students just to wade through the puddles of mud being slung across party lines is a message in media digestion in itself!

Luckily there are many resources being developed to help educators teach about climate change.  Here I’m listing a bunch that I’ve been running across.

1.  Free standards-based climate change films (polar regions)

From CIRES in Boulder comes a set of films for use in the classroom.  Sadly, they’re right now out of DVD’s, but you can see all the clips on their website. They say:  “The film contains 7 stand-alone segments appropriate for use in all kinds of science classrooms and informal settings from the middle level through college. The segments illustrate the problem of climate change and how scientists are working in Alaska and Greenland to understand it. Each segment is about 10 minutes long.  The video was developed to align strongly with the National Science Education Standards across all science subjects”

Segment 1: Introduction to Climate Change
Segment 2: Polar History
Segment 3: Studying Alaskan Permafrost
Segment 4: Ice Core Drilling
Segment 5: Studying Glaciers
Segment 6: Studying Sea Ice
Segment 7: Conclusion and Solutions

2.  Hot questions about climate change

Also here in Boulder (working for NCAR/UCAR), my fellow blogger Sharon Glassman has created a set of 30-second climate change videos, such as “What difference can a few degrees make?” (embedded below).  She says:  “The segs are fun, trustworthy, free – and designed to be spread through the atmosphere of the Web and friendship.”
©UCAR

3. Climate Discovery online courses

Also from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are a set of online courses. They are accepting registrations for winter term (starting Jan 22nd) here.   They cost $225 and there are several courses available.  They say:  “Are you seeking a K-12 professional development opportunity that will enhance your qualifications, competency, and self-confidence in integrating Earth system science, climate, and global change into your science classroom? The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) offers a series of six and seven week online courses for middle and high school teachers that combine geoscience content, information about current climate research, easy to implement hands-on activities, and group discussion. The courses run concurrently from January 22 through March 14, 2010.”

4.  How to effectively teach climate change

One teacher recommends a glacial melt activity here.  And a carbon calculator for kids.

CIRES has been working on a set of resources to help teach about controversial projects like climate change.   They have a set of helpful resources here. In particular:

• Common misconceptions about climate change (PDF)
• Climate change clicker quiz (PPT)
• Edutopia’s Taking the fear out of teaching global warming (HTML)
• Dealing with controversy (PDF)

5.  I also have a few activities and webcasts on climate change myself:

• Several hands-on activities about weather and climate here and here (such as a rice model of the composition of the earth’s atmosphere, and a model of how carbon dioxide resonates in the infrared).
• A set of webcasts – climate in the past (a synopsis of the included activities here) and in the future (a synopsis of content and activities here).

Also recommended are the following two books:

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

A pertinent question to ask as we approach New Years’ Eve.  The answer is, as is so many things, “it’s complicated.”  According to the Straight Dope, the answer is “it depends.”

When an object falls, there are two main forces on it — gravity, and air resistance.  Air resistance depends on how fast something is moving, so the faster the bullet goes, the more air resistance.  So at a certain point, the forces of gravity and air resistance are in balance, and the bullet falls at a constant speed (since you need a net force in order to accelerate, or increase your speed).  That’s called terminal velocity.

So, is the terminal velocity of a bullet fast enough so it has enough energy to penetrate the skin?  Snopes reports that, back in the 1960’s, the army determined that the energy in a 0.30 caliber bullet falling from the air was about half that needed to produce a disabling wound.  Case closed? Not quite.  For one, different bullets have different terminal velocities AND different bullets require different speeds to penetrate the skin.

This is the only “Mythbusters” Myth to be rated both “plausible, confirmed, and busted” at once. If the bullet is fired straight up, it tumbles and falls at terminal velocity, they write.

But that’s not how bullets are fired, most are fired at a shallow angle.  That’s why, in most news reports of victims of falling bullets, the victim is pretty far from the shooter.  If the bullet is shot at a shallow angle, it doesn’t tumble, and can pack a hefty wallop — much faster than terminal velocity.

Conclusion:  If you’re stupid and shooting on New Year’s — at least use a protractor.  Fire at a 90 degree angle to the ground.  If you’re shooting at a shallow angle, you might kill someone.

Of course, we’d all be safe if people just stuck to the old tradition of firing shotguns with pellets.  Birdshot doesn’t have good ballistics — the bullets don’t spin cleanly, thus achieving the high velocities of bullets.  You’d just be showered with pellets, as if they were tossed in the air.

For the mathematically inclined, here is a detailed description by high school teacher Roy Mayeda:

As to the speed at which the bullet leaves the barrel (muzzle velocity), a REALLY SLOW bullet would do 500 mph (733 ft/s), like a light 38 Special target load or light 45 Auto.  The little old 22 Long Rifle high-velocity (“normal”) averages around 1200 ft/s (818 mph).  Typical 357 Magnum defense/police load leaves at about 1450 ft/s (988 mph), .30-06 Springfield at about 2900 ft/s (1977 mph), one of the new hot-rod varmint cartridges, the 204 Ruger has a factory load listed at 4225 ft/s (2880 mph).  As a rule, mainly older, lower-powered cartridges fire bullets with subsonic speeds, though the best competition-type 22 rimfire (22 Long Rifle) cartridges are also subsonic — avoids bullet experiencing turbulence that a supersonic projectile would encounter as it dropped to subsonic speed.  For maximum accuracy, it’s usually recommended to keep the projectile either supersonic or subsonic for the entire flight, rather than letting it drop through transition speeds.

One of the first photograps of the bullet in flight made by Peter Salcher with Ernest Mach in 1886

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